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Chapters 

from 

Some  Unwritten  Memoirs 


BY 
ANNE   THACKERAY    RITCHIE 

AUTHOR   OF 

RECORDS  OF  TENNYSON,  RUSKIN,  BROWNING  "  ETC. 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

189s 


'■  m- 


Copyright,  1894,  by  Harper  &  Brothers, 

Ai/  rights  reserved. 


TO 
GEORGE  AND  ELIZABETH  MURRAY  SMITH 

These  chapters  out  of  the  past  (and  how  many 
more   that    are    not    written  here)  are 

Bftectionatelg  ©eDlcateO 

BY   THE    WRITER 
The  End  House,  Wimbledon 

SepUtnbir  13,  1894 


Le  hoiiheur  in  a  prJte  plus  d'liii  lien  fragile 
Mais  cest  adversite  qui  in  a  fait  tin  ami 


CONTENTS 

•  PACK 

I.    MY  POET I 

II.    MY  MUSICIAN 15 

III.  MY  TRIUMPHAL  ARCH 29 

IV.  MY  PROFESSOR  OF  HISTORY 43 

V.    MY  witches'   CALDRON 55 

VI.    IN    KENSINGTON 83 

VII.    TO  WEIMAR  AND    BACK lOI 

VIII.   K//J  Willis's  rooms  to  chelsea 119 

IX.    IN  VILLEGGIATURA 141 

X.    TOUT   CHEMIN 165 

XI.    MRS.  KEMBLE 185 


MY    POET 


I 


Mv  father  lived  in  good  company,  so  that  even 
as  children  we  must  have  seen  a  good  many  poets 
and  remarkable  people,  though  we  were  not  always 
conscious  of  our  privileges.  Things  certainly  strike 
children  oddly,  partially,  and  for  such  unexpected 
reasons.  They  are  so  busy  in  early  life  with  all  that 
is  going  on  on  every  side,  that  one  person  or  an- 
other person,  the  visitor  in  the  drawing-room,  the 
tortoise-shell  cat  on  the  garden  wall,  the  cook's  little 
boy  who  has  come  in  to  partake  of  cold  pudding, 
all  seem  very  nearly  as  important  one  as  the  other. 
Perhaps  I  should  not  have  been  so  much  impressed 
by  my  first  conscious  sight  of  a  poet,  if  I  had  then 
realized  all  the  notabilities  who  came  to  our  house 
from  time  to  time.  IVIy  special  poet  was  a  French- 
man. I  first  heard  his  name  in  London,  at  a  class 
which  I  attended  in  company  with  a  good  many 
other  little  girls  my  contemporaries,  which  class, 
indeed,  still  continues,  and  succeeding  generations 
receive  the  decorations,  the  J>r(^stdi:nces  and  the  sous 
prcsidenccs,  I  fear  I  personally  never  attained  to. 

My  poet  was  a  hair-dresser  by  profession,  and  a 


4  CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

barber  as  well.  His  name  was  Jasmin  (Jaquou 
Jansemin  in  the  langite  d'Oc).  He  was  born  in 
1798  at  Agen,  in  the  south  of  France ;  "  born,"  he 
writes,  "  of  a  humpback  father  and  a  halting  moth- 
er in  the  corner  of  an  old  street,  in  a  crowded 
dwelling,  peopled  by  many  rats,  on  Holy  Thursday, 
at  the  hour  when  pancakes  are  tossed."  The  hump- 
back father  was  also  a  poet  in  his  way,  and  com- 
posed songs  for  the  itinerant  players  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. So  soon  as  Jasmin  could  walk  he  used  to 
accompany  his  father  to  the  booths,  but  what  he 
liked  better  still  was  gathering  fagots  in  the  little 
islands  of  the  Garonne.  "  Bareheaded,  barefoot- 
ed," he  writes,  "  we  rowed  across  the  stream.  I 
was  not  alone:  there  were  twenty  of  us  —  there 
were  thirty  of  us.  We  started  at  the  stroke  of  the 
mid-day  hour,  singing  in  choir."  In  the  evening 
the  children  returned  as  they  had  left — "  thirty 
voices  chaunting  the  same  cadence,  and  thirty  fag- 
ots dancing  on  thirty  heads."  They  were  so  poor 
that  Jacques  felt  it  bitterly  because  his  parents 
could  not  afford  to  send  him  to  school.  One  day 
he  was  playing  in  the  market-place  when  he  saw 
his  grandfather  carried  by  to  the  hospital.  It  was 
there  the  Jasmins  were  in  the  habit  of  dying.  But 
a  cousin  taught  him  to  read ;  he  became  appren- 
ticed to  a  barber  ;  he  rose  to  be  a  hair-dresser,  and 
prospered  in  his  vocation,  so  that  he  was  able  to 


MY   POET  5 

save  his  father  from  the  usual  fate  of  the  Jasmins. 
The  hair -dresser  christened  his  first  poems  Les  Pa- 
pillotcs,  in  honor  of  his  profession ;  which  songs, 
says  he,  brought  a  silver  streamlet  through  his 
shop,  and  upon  this  silver  streamlet  he  floated  to 
better  fortunes  than  were  usual  to  the  Jasmin 
family.  One  day,  in  a  fit  of  poetic  ardor,  he  broke 
the  terrible  arm-chair  in  which  they  had  all  been  in 
the  habit  of  being  carried  to  the  hospital.  Jasmin, 
after  he  became  celebrated,  would  never  abandon 
his  home  or  his  little  shop,  but  from  time  to  time 
he  went  for  a  journey ;  sometimes  he  would  come 
to  Paris,  where  he  was  kindly  recognized  by  other 
authors  more  fortunate  in  their  worldly  circum- 
stances, and  he  would  be  made  to  repeat  his  own 
songs  by  the  great  ladies  who  took  him  up.  Chief 
among  them  was  Lady  Elgin,  who  lived  in  Paris 
then,  and  who  was  a  good  friend  to  all  literary  as- 
pirants. Longfellow  was  also  among  Jasmin's  ad- 
mirers, and  translated  some  of  his  works.  Much  of 
all  this  I  have  since  read  in  the  DiograpJiic  Na- 
tionalc.  As  children  at  our  French  classes  we  had 
only  learned  some  of  his  lines  by  heart.  I  used  to 
break  down  in  utter  confusion  when  my  turn  came 
to  recite,  but  at  the  same  time  I  believe  I  took  in 
a  great  deal  more  than  I  had  any  idea  of,  as  I  sat 
there  incompetent,  wool-gathering.  In  that  long, 
bare  room,  only  ornamented  by  a  few  large  maps  and 


6  CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

with  a  flowing  border  of  governesses,  there  came 
to  one  many  of  those  impressions  which  are  not 
dates  or  facts,  and  which  don't,  alas  !  count  for  good 
marks,  but  which  nevertheless  are  very  useful  and 
agreeable  possessions  in  after- days.  We  used  to 
have  delightful  French  lessons  in  literature  and 
poetry,  and  I  still  remember  the  dazzling  visions 
of  troubadours  evoked  by  our  teacher — troubadours 
amid  the  golden  landscapes  of  the  south  of  France, 
as  described  in  the  Mysteries  of  Udolpho ;  the  po- 
ems themselves  as  he  quoted  them  almost  seemed 
to  have  wings  and  to  come  flying  out  of  the 
well-thumbed  Reciieil !  We  had  lessons  in  morality 
and  in  experience  as  well  as  in  literature.  I  can 
still  hear  M.  Roche  in  his  melodious  voice  quoting 
"  de  tout  laurier  un  poison  est  I'essence,"  and 
praising  the  philosophical  aptness  of  the  illustra- 
tion, which  seemed  to  me  so  splendid  that  I  was 
quite  overpowered  by  it  as  I  went  home  with  my 
governess  along  South  Audley  Street.  There  was 
another  heart-rending  poem  about  an  angel  stand- 
ing by  a  cradle  and  contemplating  its  own  image 
in  the  face  of  an  infant,  "  reflected  as  in  a  stream." 
The  angel  finally  carries  away  the  poor  baby,  and 
the  mother  kneels  weeping  by  the  empty  cradle. 
It  was  a  sort  of  Christmas-card  of  a  poem  well  suit- 
ed to  the  sentimental  experience  of  a  little  girl  of 
twelve  or  thirteen  years  old,  and  I  then  and  there 


MY    POET  7 

determined  that  Reboul  was  my  favorite  author, 
after  all.  But  there  were  many  others  besides  Re- 
boul. Poor  Andre  Chenier  we  were  all  in  love  with, 
and  Jasmin  aforesaid  held  his  own  among  the 
worthy  recipients  of  that  golden  flower  of  poesy 
which  played  such  an  important  part  in  our  early 
education,  and  which  was  (so  we  learned)  yearly  be- 
stowed by  the  inhabitants  of  Toulouse  upon  the 
most  successful  competitors  in  the  art.  I  used  to 
picture  the  flower  itself  as  a  radiant,  quivering  ob- 
ject covered  with  delicate,  glittering  workmanship. 
Perhaps  nowadays  I  realize  that  golden  flowers  of 
poesy  are  also  bestowed  in  the  south  of  England — 
in  Waterloo  Place,  or  Bedford  Street,  Covent  Gar- 
den, shall  we  say? — round  golden  tokens  which 
are  not  without  their  own  special  graces. 

But  to  return  to  my  memoirs.  Our  life  was  di- 
vided between  London  and  Paris,  where  our  grand- 
parents dwelt,  and  where  we  spent  a  part  of  every 
year,  and  all  my  recent  studies  and  experiences 
rushed  into  my  mind  one  day  soon  after  our  re- 
turn to  France,  when  my  grandmother  told  me 
that  she  had  been  asked  to  a  party  at  Lady  Elgin's 
to  meet  a  poet,  that  his  name  was  Jasmin,  and  that 
she  was  going  to  take  me  with  her!  My  heart 
leaped  with  excitement;  Jasmin — the  South — gold- 
en flowers  — prc'sidences  —  a  grown-up  party  —  the 
portals  of  life  seemed  to  fly  open  with  those  of  our 


8  CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

porte-cochere  as  the  carriage,  containing  my  grand- 
mother and  me  in  our  Sunday  best,  drove  off  into 
the  dark  streets.  We  were  escorted  down-stairs  by 
the  cook,  with  an  extra  lantern,  I  remember,  and 
my  grandfather  in  his  little  black  silk  toque  waved 
farewell  over  the  staircase.  We  started  expectant, 
rolling  over  the  rattling  stones  ;  we  crossed  the 
bridge  and  saw  the  dark  river  below  us  reflecting 
the  lights — I  remember  no  stars,  but  a  damp  and 
drizzly  darkness  overhead,  which,  for  some  reason, 
added  to  my  excitement.  We  reached  the  ancient 
faubourg  before  very  long,  where  the  oil-lamps 
swung  by  chains  across  the  streets;  we  turned  into 
the  Rue  de  Varennes,  where  Lady  Elgin  lived,  and 
the  coachman  rapped  at  the  great  closed  gates  of 
the  house,  which  opened  with  a  grinding  sound, 
and  we  walked  across  the  court-yard.  The  apart- 
ment was  on  the  ground-floor  of  a  fine,  melancholy 
old  house. 

I  followed  my  grandmother  in  her  brown  velvet 
gown  and  her  diamond  brooch  into  the  reception- 
room.  I  remember  being  surprised  to  find  the  gay 
world  so  dark  on  the  whole,  and  talking  in  such  a 
confused  and  subdued  murmur.  I  had  expected 
chandeliers,  bursts  of  laughter,  people  in  masks 
and  dominoes.  I  had  taken  my  ideas  from  bon- 
bon-boxes and  crackers.  ]3ut  it  was  evidently  all 
right — my  grandmother  looked  greatly  pleased  and 


MY   POET  9 

animated.  I  saw  her  speaking  to  one  person  and 
to  another  in  her  dignified  way;  her  manners  were 
true  grandmother's  manners — kind,  but  distant  and 
serious.  We  considered  our  grandmother  a  very 
important  personage,  and  I  remember  feehng  not 
a  Httle  proud  of  her  beauty  and  dignity  as  we 
moved  along.  She  was  not  one  of  your  "  remains ;" 
she  was  a  very  noble-looking  old  lady,  holding  her 
head  high,  and  her  diamond  cap-pin  flashed  as  she 
moved  across  the  room. 

My  grandmother  looked  pleased  and  animated,  as 
I  have  said,  and  when  her  friends  came  up  to  speak 
to  her  she  introduced  me  to  some  of  them.  Almost 
the  very  first  person  she  greeted,  but  to  whom  she 
did  not  introduce  me,  was  a  handsome,  rather  ro- 
mantic, fashionable  -  looking  gentleman,  with  a 
quantity  of  dark  hair,  and  a  glass  in  one  eye,  lean- 
ing against  the  wall  by  the  door  as  we  entered. 
She  said  a  few  words  as  we  passed.  I  heard  some- 
thing about  "Lady  Charlotte,"  and  then  we  walked 
on,  and  presently  we  came  upon  another  girl, 
younger  than  myself  and  very  distinguished  look- 
ing, in  a  plaid  frock,  with  beautiful  shining  braids 
of  thick  hair,  who  seemed  quite  at  home  and  used 
to  the  house  ;  she  was  with  her  mother,  a  regal- 
looking  little  woman,  with  a  fine  profile  and  a  gold 
crown ;  I  can  still  see  her  in  a  long  green  velvet 
robe  slowly   crossing  the   room  ;  she  was  a  well- 


10        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

known  person — Mrs.  Chapman,  the  celebrated  Abo- 
litionist. The  little  girl  was  her  youngest  daugh- 
ter. While  Mrs.  Chapman  and  my  grandmother 
were  talking  to  one  another,  little  Anne  Chapman, 
who  seemed  to  know  most  of  the  people,  began 
telling  me  who  they  all  were.  A  great  many  pages 
out  of  M.  Roche's  Rccueil  were  present.  There 
were  all  sorts  of  notable  folks  murmuring  to  one 
another  in  the  big  rooms.  "  Who  was  the  gentle- 
man in  the  doorway?"  "Oh,  he  is  Mr.  Locker," 
said  little  Anne ;  "  he  is  married  to  Lady  Charlotte 
— Lady  Elgin's  daughter;  didn't  I  know? — they 
had  only  come  over  from  England  the  day  before." 
"And  which  is  the  poet?"  said  I,  eagerly.  "  There 
he  is,  in  the  middle  of  the  room,"  said  the  little 
girl.  "Oh,  where?"  said  L  "Oh,  not  that  T  For 
suddenly,  just  under  the  swinging  chandelier,  I  see 
a  head,  like  the  figure-head  of  a  ship — a  jolly,  red, 
shiny,  weather-beaten  face,  with  large,  round,  prom- 
inent features,  ornamented  with  little  pomatumy 
wisps  of  hair,  and  a  massive  torso  clothed  in  a  mag- 
nificent frilled  shirt  over  a  pink  lining.  ..."  That 
the  poet?  not  that,"  I  falter,  gazing  at  Punchinello, 
high-shouldered,  good-humored  !  "  Yes,  of  course 
it  is  that,"  said  the  little  girl,  laughing  at  my  dis- 
may ;  and  the  crowd  seems  to  form  a  circle,  in  the 
centre  of  which  stands  this  droll  being,  who  now 
befjins  to  recite  in  a  monotonous  voice. 


MY   POET  II 

I  can  understand  French  well  enough,  but  not 
one  single  word  of  what  he  is  saying.  It  sounds 
perfectly  unintelligible,  something  like  chi,  choii, 
cha,  atchiou,  atchiou,  atchioii !  And  so  it  goes  on, 
and  on,  and  on.  The  shirt  frill  beats  time,  the 
monotonous  voice  rises  and  falls.  It  leaves  off  at 
last,  the  poet  wipes  the  perspiration  from  his  brow  ; 
there  is  a  moment's  silence,  then  a  murmur  of  ad- 
miration from  the  crowd  which  closes  round  him. 
I  see  the  Punchinello  being  led  up  to  somebody 
to  be  thanked  and  congratulated  ;  my  heart  goes 
down,  down ;  more  murmurs,  more  exclamations. 
The  little  girl  is  gone,  I  am  all  alone  with  my  dis- 
appointment, and  then  my  grandmother  calls  me 
to  her  side  and  says  it  is  time  to  come  away.  As 
we  move  towards  the  door  again,  we  once  more 
pass  Mr.  Locker,  and  he  nods  kindly,  and  tells  me 
he  knows  my  father.  "  Well,  and  what  do  you 
think  of  Jasmin?"  he  asks;  but  I  can't  answer  him, 
my  illusions  are  dashed.  As  we  drive  off  through 
the  streets  the  rain  is  still  falling,  the  oil-lamps  are 
swinging;  we  cross  the  bridge  once  more,  but  how 
dull,  how  dark,  how  sad  it  all  seems !  My  grand- 
mother, sitting  upright  in  the  dark  carriage,  says 
she  has  spent  a  very  pleasant  evening,  and  that  she 
is  delighted  with  Jasmin's  simplicity  and  original- 
ity. I  who  had  longed  to  see  a  poet !  who  had 
pictured  something  so  different!    I  swallowed  down 


12         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

as  best  I  could  that  gulp  of  salt-water  which  is  so 
apt  to  choke  us  when  we  first  take  our  plunge  into 
the  experience  of  life.  "  He  didn't  look  much 
like  a  poet,  and  I  couldn't  understand  what  he 
said,"  I  faltered. 

"  Of  course  you  could  not  understand  the /<?/£>«, 
but  have  you  not  enjoyed  your  evening?"  said  my 
grandmother,  disappointed,  I  had  the  grace  to 
try  to  speak  cheerfully.  "  I  liked  the  little  girl 
very  much,  and — and — and  I  liked  talking  to  Mr, 
Locker,  but  then  he  isnt  a  poet,"  said  I. 

I  can't  help  laughing  even  now  as  I  conjure  up 
the  absurd  little  dream  of  the  past  and  the  bitterness 
of  that  childish  disappointment.  How  little  do  we 
mortals  recognize  our  good-fortune  that  comes  to 
us  now  and  again  in  a  certain  humorous  disguise. 
Why,  I  had  been  in  a  world  of  poets !  A  poet  had 
greeted  me,  a  poet  had  sung  to  me,  I  had  been 
hustled  by  poets  ;  there  in  the  crowd  (for  all  I 
know  to  the  contrary)  were  Lamartine  and  Cha- 
teaubriand and  Girardin  and  Merimee — so,  at  least, 
some  one  who  was  present  on  this  occasion  re- 
minds me.  And  as  for  Frederick  Locker,  does  not 
his  caged  music — like  that  of  the  bird  of  Wood 
Street — echo  along  the  arid  pavements  with  sweet- 
est and  most  welcome  note  to  charm  the  passers- 
by  as  the  echoes  of  "  London  Lyrics  "  fall  upon  the 
listenin;^  ear?     And  the  red  face  was  also  that  of  a 


MY   POET  13 

true  poet,  born  to  sing  his  sweet,  unpretending  song 
from  a  true  heart,  and  to  bring  music  into  humble 
places.  "  A  poet  of  the  people,  writing  in  his  dia- 
lect, celebrating  public  occasions  and  solemnities," 
says  Sainte-Beuve,  "  which  somehow  remind  one  of 
the  Middle  Ages;  belonging"  (so  he  continues) 
"to  the  school  of  Horace  and  to  the  school  of 
Theocritus  and  to  that  of  Gray,  and  to  that  of  all 
those  charming  studious  inspirations  which  aim  at 
perfection  in  all  their  work." 


MY    MUSICIAN 


II 


One's  early  life  is  certainly  a  great  deal  more 
amusing  to  look  back  to  than  it  used  to  be  when 
it  was  going  on.  For  one  thing  it  isn't  nearly  so 
long  now  as  it  was  then,  and  remembered  events 
come  cheerfully  scurrying  up  one  after  another, 
while  the  intervening  periods  are  no  longer  the 
portentous  cycles  they  once  were.  And  another 
thing  to  consider  is  that  the  people  walking  in  and 
out  of  the  by-gone  mansions  of  life  were  not,  to 
our  newly-opened  eyes,  the  interesting  personages 
many  of  them  have  since  become ;  tlicn  they  were 
men  walking  as  trees  before  us,  without  names  or 
histories;  noiv  some  of  the  very  names  mean  for  us 
the  history  of  our  time.  Very  young  people's  eyes 
are  certainly  of  more  importance  to  them  than  their 
ears,  and  they  all  see  the  persons  they  are  destined 
to  spend  their  lives  with  long  before  the  figures 
begin  to  talk  and  to  explain  themselves. 

My  grandmother  had  a  little  society  of  her  own 
at  Paris,  in  the  midst  of  which  she  seemed  to  reign 
from  dignity  and  kindness  of  heart ;  her  friends,  it 
must  be  confessed,  have  not  as  yet  become  historic, 


l8         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

but  she  herself  was  well  worthy  of  a  record.  Grand- 
mothers in  books  and  memoirs  are  mostly  alike 
— stately,  old-fashioned,  kindly,  and  critical,  ]\Iine 
was  no  exception  to  the  general  rule.  She  had 
been  one  of  the  most  beautiful  women  of  her  time  ; 
she  was  very  tall,  with  a  queenly  head  and  carriage  ; 
she  always  moved  in  a  dignified  way.  She  had  an 
odd  taste  in  dress,  I  remember,  and  used  to  walk 
out  in  a  red  merino  cloak  trimmed  with  ermine, 
which  gave  her  the  air  of  a  retired  empress  wearing 
out  her  robes.  She  was  a  woman  of  strong  feeling, 
somewhat  imperious,  with  a  passionate  love  for  lit- 
tle children,  and  with  extraordinary  sympathy  and 
enthusiasm  for  any  one  in  trouble  or  in  disgrace. 
How  benevolently  she  used  to  look  round  the  room 
at  her  many  protdgcs,  with  her  beautiful  gray  eyes ! 
Her  friends  as  a  rule  were  shorter  than  she  was  and 
brisker,  less  serious  and  emotional.  They  adopted 
her  views  upon  politics,  religion,  and  homoeopathy, 
or  at  all  events  did  not  venture  to  contradict  them. 
But  they  certainly  could  not  reach  her  heights,  and 
her  almost  romantic  passion  of  feeling. 

A  great  many  of  my  earliest  recollections  seem 
to  consist  of  old  ladies — armies  of  old  ladies,  so 
they  appear  to  me,  as  I  look  back  through  the 
larger  end  of  my  glasses  to  the  time  when  my  sister 
and  I  were  two  little  girls  living  at  Paris.  I  re- 
member once  that  after  a  long  stay  in  England  with 


MY   MUSICIAN  '  19 

our  father,  the  old  ladies  seemed  changed  some- 
how to  our  more  experienced  eyes.  They  were 
the  same,  but  with  more  variety  ;  not  all  alike  as 
they  had  seemed  before,  not  all  the  same  age  ;  some 
were  younger,  some  were  older  than  we  had  re- 
membered them — -one  was  actually  married  !  Our 
grandmother  looked  older  to  us  this  time  when 
wc  came  back  to  Paris ;  we  were  used  to  seeing  our 
father's  gray  hair,  but  that  hers  should  turn  white 
too  seemed  almost  unnatural.  The  very  first  day 
we  walked  out  with  her  after  our  return,  we  met 
the  bride  of  whose  marriage  we  had  heard  while 
we  were  away.  She  was  a  little  dumpy,  good- 
natured  woman  of  about  forty-five,  I  suppose — shall 
I  ever  forget  the  thrill  with  which  we  watched  her 
approach,  hanging  with  careless  grace  upon  her 
husband's  arm  ?  She  wore  light,  tight  kid  gloves 
upon  her  little  fat  hands,  and, a  bonnet  like  a  bride's 
cake.  Marriage  had  not  made  her  proud  as  it  does 
some  people  ;  she  recognized  us  at  once  and  intro- 
duced us  to  the  gentleman.  "  Very  'appy  to  make 
your  acquaintance,  miss,"  said  he.  "  Mrs.  C.  'ave 
often  mentioned  you  at  our  place." 

Children  begin  by  being  Philistines.  As  we  parted 
I  said  to  my  grandmother  that  I  had  always  known 
people  dropped  their  h's,  but  that  I  didn't  know 
one  ever  married  them.  My  grandmother  seemed 
trying  not  to  laugh,  but  she  answered  gravely  that 


20         CHAPTERS   FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  C.  looked  very  happy,  h's  or  no  h's. 
And  so  they  did,  walking  off  along  those  illumi- 
nated Elysian  fields  gay  with  the  echoes  of  Paris  in 
May,  while  the  children  capered  to  itinerant  music, 
and  flags  were  flying  and  penny  trumpets  ringing, 
and  strollers  and  spectators  were  lining  the  way, 
and  the  long  interminable  procession  of  carriages 
in  the  centre  of  the  road  went  rolling  steadily 
towards  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  As  we  walked 
homewards  evening  after  evening  the  sun  used  to 
set  splendidly  in  the  very  centre  of  the  great  trium- 
phal arch  at  the  far  end  of  the  avenue,  and  flood 
everything  in  a  glorious  tide  of  light.  What  indeed 
did  an  aspirate  more  or  less  matter  at  such  a  mo- 
ment ! 

I  don't  think  we  ever  came  home  from  one  of 
our  walks  that  we  did  not  find  our  grandfather  sit- 
ting watching  for  our  grandmother's  return.  We 
used  to  ask  him  if  he  didn't  find  it  very  dull  doing 
nothing  in  the  twilight,  but  he  used  to  tell  us  it 
was  liis  thinking-time.  My  sister  and  I  thought 
thinking  dreadfully  dull,  and  only  longed  for  can- 
dles and  CJianibcrss  Llisccllany.  A  good  deal  of 
thinking  went  on  in  our  peaceful  home  ;  we  should 
have  liked  more  doing.  One  day  was  just  like  an- 
other;  my  grandmother  and  my  grandfather  sat 
on  either  side  of  the  hearth  in  their  two  accus- 
tomed places ;  there  was  a  French  cook  in  a  white 


MY    MUSICIAN  21 

cap  ^vho  brought  in  the  trays  and  the  lamp  at  the 
appointed  hour;  there  was  CJianibcrs  on  the  book- 
shelf, Pickzvick,  and  one  or  two  of  my  father's 
books,  and  The  Listener,  by  Caroline  Fry,  which 
used  to  be  my  last  desperate  resource  when  I  had 
just  finished  all  the  others.  We  lived  in  a  sunny 
little  flat  on  a  fourth  floor,  with  windows  east  and 
west  and  a  wide  horizon  from  each,  and  the  sound 
of  the  cries  from  the  street  below,  and  the  con- 
fusing roll  of  the  wheels  when  the  windows  were 
open  in  summer.  In  winter  time  we  dined  at 
five  by  lamp-light  at  the  round  table  in  my  grand- 
father's study.  After  dinner  we  used  to  go  into 
the  pretty  blue  drawing-room  where  the  peat  fire 
would  be  burning  brightly  in  the  open  grate,  and 
the  evening  paper  would  come  in  with  the  tea.  I 
can  see  it  all  still,  hear  it,  smell  the  peat,  and  taste 
the  odd  herbaceous  tea  and  the  French  bread 
and  butter.  On  the  band  of  the  Constitutional 
newspaper  was  printed  "  M.  le  Major  ]Michel  Esch- 
mid."  It  was  not  my  grandfather's  name  or  any- 
thing like  it,  but  he  would  gravely  say  that  when 
English  people  lived  in  France  they  must  expect 
to  have  their  names  galliciscd,  and  his  paper  cer- 
tainly found  him  out  evening  after  evening.  While 
my  grandmother  with  much  emphasis  read  the 
news  (she  was  a  fervent  republican,  and  so  was  my 
grandfather),  my  sister  and  I  would  sit  unconscious 


2  2         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

of  politics  and  happy  over  our  story-books  until 
the  fatal,  inevitable  moment  when  a  ring  was  heard 
at  the  bell  and  evening  callers  were  announced. 
Then  we  reluctantly  shut  up  our  books,  for  we 
were  told  to  get  our  needle-work  when  the  com- 
pany came  in,  and  we  had  to  find  chairs  and  hand 
teacups,  and  answer  inquiries,  and  presently  go  to 
bed. 

The  ladies  would  come  in  in  their  bonnets,  with 
their  news  and  their  comments  upon  the  public 
events,  which,  by  the  way,  seemed  to  go  off  like 
fireworks  in  those  days  expressly  for  our  edifica- 
tion. Ours  was  a  talkative,  economical,  and  active 
little  society — Cranford  en  Voyage  is  the  impres- 
sion which  remains  to  me  of  those  early  surround- 
ings. If  the  ladies  were  one  and  all  cordially  at- 
tached to  my  grandmother,  to  my  grandfather 
they  were  still  more  devoted.  A  Major  is  a  Ma- 
jor. He  used  to  sign  their  pension  papers,  admin- 
ister globules  for  their  colds,  give  point  and  sup- 
port to  their  political  opinions.  I  can  sec  him  still 
sitting  in  his  arm-chair  by  the  fire  with  a  little  semi- 
circle round  about  the  hearth.  Ours  was  anything 
but  a  meek  and  disappointed  community.  We 
may  have  had  our  reverses — and  very  important 
reverses  they  all  seem  to  have  been — but  we  had 
all  had  spirit  enough  to  leave  our  native  shores  and 
settle  in  Paris,  not  without  a  certain  implied  disap- 


MY   MUSICIAN  23 

proval  of  the  other  people  who  went  on  Hving  in 
England  regardless  of  expense.  My  father  did  not 
escape  this  criticism.  Why,  they  used  to  say,  did 
he  remain  in  that  nasty  smoky  climate,  so  bad  for 
health  and  spirits?  Why  didn't  he  settle  in  Paris 
and  write  works  upon  the  French  ?  Why  didn't  I 
write  and  coax  him  to  come,  and  tell  him  that  it 
was  our  grandmother's  wish  that  he  should  do  so  ; 
that  the  speaker,  Mademoiselle  Trotkins  (or  who- 
ever it  might  be),  had  told  me  to  write?  I  remem- 
ber going  through  an  early  martyrdom  at  these 
friendly  hands,  and  bitterly  and  silently  resent- 
ing their  indignation  with  any  one  who  could  pre- 
fer that  black  and  sooty  place  London  to  Paris. 
At  the  same  time  they  allowed  that  the  layers  were 
becoming  more  exorbitant  every  day,  and  as  for 
the  friiiticre  at  the  corner,  she  was  charging  no 
less  than  forty  sons  for  her  Isyngny.  We  always 
talked  in  a  sort  of  sandwich  of  French  and  Eng- 
lish. Oddly  enough,  though  we  talked  French, 
and  some  of  us  even  looked  French,  we  knew  no 
French  people.  From  time  to  time  at  other  houses 
I  used  to  hear  of  real  foreigners,  but  I  don't  remem- 
ber seeing  any  at  ours,  except  ^  pastciir  who  some- 
times came,  and  a  certain  Viscomte  de  B.  (I  had 
nearly  written  Bragelonne),  whose  mother,  I  be- 
lieve, was  also  English.  Jciincs  fillcs,  jcuncs  flcurs, 
he  used  to  say,  bowing  to  the  young  ladies.     This 


24         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

was  our  one  only  approach  to  an  introduction  to 
French  society.  But  all  the  same  one  cannot  live 
abroad  without  imbibing  something  of  the  coun- 
try, of  the  air  and  the  earth  and  the  waters  among 
which  one  is  living.  Breath  and  food  and  raiment 
are  a  part  of  one's  life  after  all,  and  a  very  consid- 
erable part ;  and  all  the  wonderful  tide  of  foreign 
sunshine  and  the  cheerful  crowds  and  happy  voices 
outside,  and  the  very  click  of  pots  and  pans  in  the 
little  kitchen  at  the  back  seemed  to  have  a  character 
of  their  own.  And  so,  though  we  knew  nothing  of 
the  French,  we  got  to  know  France  and  to  feel  at 
home  there  beneath  its  blue  sky,  and  I  think  to 
this  day  a  holiday  abroad  is  ten  times  more  a  holi- 
day than  a  holiday  at  home.  From  mere  habit, 
one  seems  to  be  sixteen  again,  and  one's  spirits 
rise  and  one's  exigencies  abate.  Besides  the  dwell- 
ers in  the  appartcnicnts  and  the  regular  customers 
of  the  extortionate  friiiticrc,  there  used  to  be  pass- 
ing friends  and  acquaintances  who  visited  us  on 
their  way  to  other  resorts  —  to  Italy,  to  the  Ger- 
man baths.  Some  stopped  in  Paris  for  a  week  or 
two  at  a  time,  others  for  a  few  days'  only.  I  re- 
member three  Scotch  ladies,  for  whom  my  grand- 
mother had  a  great  regard,  who  were  not  part  of  our 
community,  but  who  used  to  pass  through  Paris,  and 
always  made  a  certain  stay.  ...  I  was  very  much 
afraid  of  them,  though  interested  at  the  same  time 


MY   MUSICIAN  25 

as  girls  arc  in  unknown  quantities.  They  were 
well  connected  and  had  estates  and  grand  rela- 
tions in  the  distance,  though  they  seemed  to  live 
as  simply  as  we  did.  One  winter  it  was  announced 
that  they  had  taken  an  apartment  for  a  few  Ave^ks, 
and  next  morning  I  was  sent  with  a  note  to  one  of 
them  by  my  grandmother.  They  were  tall,  thin 
ladies,  two  were  widows,  one  was  a  spinster  ;  of  the 
three  the  unmarried  one  frightened  me  most.  On 
this  occasion,  after  reading  the  note,  one  of  the 
widow  ladies  said  to  the  spinster,  Miss  X.,  who 
had  her  bonnet  on,  "  Why,  you  were  just  going  to 
call  on  the  child's  grandmother,  were  you  not? 
Why  don't  you  take  her  back  with  you  in  the  car- 
riage?" "I  must  first  go  and  see  how  he  is  this 
morning,"  said  Miss  X.,  somewhat  anxiously,  "  and 
then  I  will  take  her  home,  of  course.  Are  the  things 
packed  ?"  A  servant  came  in  carrying  a  large  bas- 
ket with  a  variety  of  bottles  and  viands  and  nap- 
kins. I  had  not  presence  of  mind  to  run  away  as 
I  longed  to  do,  and  somehow  in  a  few  minutes  I 
found  myself  sitting  in  a  little  open  carriage  with 
the  Scotch  lad}%  and  the  basket  on  the  opposite 
seat.  I  thought  her,  if  possible,  more  terrible  than 
ever — she  seemed  grave,  preoccupied.  She  had  a 
long  nose,  a  thick  brown  complexion,  grayish  sandy 
hair,  and  was  dressed  in  scanty  cloth  skirts  gray 
and  sandy  too.     She  spoke  to  me,  I  believe,  but 


26         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

my  heart  was  in  my  mouth ;  I  hardly  dared  even 
listen  to  what  she  said.  We  drove  along  the 
Champs  Elysees  towards  the  Arc  and  then  turned 
into  a  side  street,  and  presently  came  to  a  house  at 
the  door  of  which  the  carriage  stopped.  The  lady 
got  out,  carefully  carrying  her  heavy  basket,  and 
told  me  to  follow,  and  we  began  to  climb  the  shiny 
stairs^onc,  two  flights  I  think — then  we  rang  at  a 
bell  and  the  door  was  almost  instantly  opened.  It 
was  opened  by  a  slight,  delicate-looking  man  with 
long  hair,  bright  eyes,  and  a  thin,  hooked  nose. 
When  Miss  X.  saw  him  she  hastily  put  down  her 
basket  upon  the  floor,  caught  both  his  hands  in 
hers,  began  to  shake  them  gently,  and  to  scold  him 
in  an  affectionate  reproving  way  for  having  come 
to  the  door.  He  laughed,  said  he  had  guessed 
who  it  was,  and  motioned  to  her  to  enter,  and  I 
followed  at  her  sign  with  the  basket — followed  into 
a  narrow  little  room,  with  no  furniture  in  it  what- 
ever but  an  upright  piano  against  the  wall  and  a 
few  straw  chairs  standing  on  the  wooden  shiny 
floor.  He  made  us  sit  down  with  some  courtesy, 
and  in  reply  to  her  questions  said  he  was  pretty 
well.  Had  he  slept?  He  shook  his  head.  Had 
he  eaten  ?  lie  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  then 
he  pointed  to  the  piano.  He  had  been  compos- 
ing something  ^ — I  remember  that  he  spoke  in  an 
abrupt,  light  sort   of  way — would  Miss  X.  like   to 


MY   MUSICIAN  27 

hear  it?  "She  would  like  to  hear  it,"  she  an- 
swered, "  of  course,  she  would  dearly  like  to  hear 
it ;  but  it  would  tire  him  to  play ;  it  could  not  be 
good  for  him."  lie  smiled  again,  shook  back  his 
long  hair,  and  sat  down  immediately ;  and  then 
the  music  began  and  the  room  was  filled  with  con- 
tinuous sound,  he  looking  over  his  shoulder  now 
and  then  to  see  if  we  were  liking  it.  The  lady  sat 
absorbed  and  listening,  and  as  I  looked  at  her  I 
saw  tears  in  her  eyes  —  great  clear  tears  rolling 
down  her  cheeks  while  the  music  poured  on  and 
on.  I  can't,  alas,  recall  that  music  !  I  would  give 
anything  to  remember  it  now;  but  the  truth  is,  I 
was  so  interested  in  the  people  that  I  scarcely 
listened.  When  he  stopped  at  last  and  looked 
round,  the  lady  started  up.  "You  mustn't  play 
any  more,"  she  said  ;  "  no  more,  no  more,  it's  too 
beautiful  "  — and  she  praised  him  and  thanked  him 
in  a  tender,  motherly,  pitying  sort  of  way,  and  then 
hurriedly  said  we  must  go  ;  but  as  we  took  leave 
she  added,  almost  in  a  whisper  with  a  humble 
apologizing  look — "  I  have  brought  you  some  of 
that  jelly,  and  my  sister  sent  some  of  the  wine  you 
fancied  the  other  day  ;  pray,  pray  try  to  take  a 
little."  He  again  shook  his  head  at  her,  seeming 
more  vexed  than  grateful.  "  It  is  very  wrong ; 
you  shouldn't  bring  me  these  things,"  he  said  in 
French.    ''  I  won't  play  to  you  if  you  do  " — but  she 


28         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

put  him  back  softly,  and  hurriedly  closed  the  door 
upon  him  and  the  offending  basket,  and  hastened 
away.  As  we  were  coming  down-stairs  she  wiped 
her  eyes  again.  By  this  time  I  had  got  to  under- 
stand the  plain,  tall,  grim,  warm-hearted  woman; 
all  my  silly  terrors  were  gone.  She  looked  hard  at 
me  as  we  drove  away.  "  Never  forget  that  you 
have  heard  Chopin  play,"  she  said  with  emotion, 
"  for  soon  no  one  will  ever  hear  him  play  any  more." 
Sometimes  reading  the  memoirs  of  the  great 
musician,  the  sad  story  of  his  early  death,  of  his 
passionate  fidelity,  and  cruel  estrangement  from 
the  companion  he  most  loved,  I  have  remembered 
this  little  scene  with  comfort  and  pleasure,  and 
known  that  he  was  not  altogether  alone  in  life, 
and  that  he  had  good  friends  who  cared  for  his 
genius  and  tended  him  to  the  last.  Of  their  affec- 
tion he  was  aware.  But  of  their  constant  secret 
material  guardianship  he  was  unconscious;  the 
basket  he  evidently  hated,  the  woman  he  turned 
to  with  most  grateful  response  and  dependence. 
He  was  to  the  very  end  absorbed  in  his  music,  in 
his  art,  in  his  love.  He  had  bestowed  without 
counting  all  that  he  had  to  give :  he  poured  it 
forth  upon  others,  never  reckoning  the  cost ;  and 
then  dying  away  from  it  all,  he  in  turn  took  what 
came  to  him  as  a  child  might  do,  without  ponder- 
ing or  speculating  overmuch. 


MY   TRIUMPHAL   ARCH 


Ill 


I  BEGAN  life  at  four  or  five  years  old  as  a  fervent 
Napoleon ist.  The  great  emperor  had  not  been 
dead  a  quarter  of  a  century  when  I  was  a  little 
child.  He  was  certainly  alive  in  the  hearts  of  the 
French  people  and  of  the  children  growing  up 
among  them.  Influenced  by  the  cook,  we  adored 
his  memory,  and  the  concierge  had  a  clock  with  a 
laurel  wreath  which  from  some  reason  kindled  all 
our  enthusiasm. 

As  a  baby  holding  my  father's  finger  I  had 
stared  at  the  second  funeral  of  Napoleon  sweeping 
up  the  great  roadway  of  the  Champs  Elysees. 
The  ground  was  white  with  new-fallen  snow,  and 
I  had  never  seen  snow  before  ;  it  seemed  to  me 
to  be  a  part  of  the  funeral,  a  mighty  pall  indeed 
spread  for  the  obsequies  of  so  great  a  warrior.  It 
was  the  snow  I  thought  about,  though  I  looked 
with  awe  at'  the  black  and  glittering  carriages 
which  came  up  like  ships  sailing  past  us,  noiseless- 
ly one  by  one.  They  frightened  me,  for  I  thought 
there  was  a  dead  emperor  in  each.  This  weird 
procession  gave  a  strange  importance  to  the  mem- 


32  CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

ory  of  the  great  emperor,  and  also  to  the  Httle 
marble  statuette  of  him  on  the  nursery  chimney- 
piece.  It  stood  with  folded  arms  contemplating 
the  decadence  of  France,  black  and  silent  and  re- 
proachful. France  was  no  longer  an  empire,  only 
a  kingdom  just  like  any  other  country  ;  this  fact  I 
and  the  cook  bitterly  resented.  Besides  the  statu- 
ette there  was  a  snuff-box,  belonging  I  know  not 
to  whom,  that  was  a  treasure  of  emotional  awe. 
It  came  out  on  Sundays,  and  sometimes  of  an 
evening  just  before  bed -time.  At  first  as  you 
looked  you  saw  nothing  but  the  cover  of  a  wooden 
box  ornamented  by  a  drawing  in  brown  sepia,  the 
sketch  of  a  tombstone  and  a  weeping  willow-tree — 
nothing  more.  Then  if  you  looked  again,  indi- 
cated by  ingenious  twigs  and  lines  there  gradually 
dawned  upon  you  the  figure,  the  shadowy  figure 
of  him  who  lay  beneath  the  stone.  Napoleon,  pale 
and  sad,  with  folded  arms,  with  his  cocked  hat 
crushed  forward  on  his  brow,  the  mournful  shade 
of  the  conqueror  who  had  sent  a  million  of  other 
men  to  Hades  before  him. 

As  we  gazed  we  hated  the  English.  It  is  true  I 
was  very  glad  they  always  conquered  everybody, 
and  that  my  grandpapa  was  a  major  in  their  army; 
but  at  the  same  time  the  cook  and  I  hated  the 
perfidious  English,  and  we  felt  that  if  Napoleon 
had  not  been  betrayed  he  would  still  have  been 
reifTninfT  over  us  here  in  Paris. 


MY   TRIUMPHAL   ARCH  $^ 

Every  day  we  children  used  to  go  with  our 
bonne  to  play  round  about  the  Arc  de  Triomphe 
near  which  we  lived,  and  where,  alternating  with 
ornamental  rosettes,  the  long  lists  of  Napoleon's 
battles  and  triumphs  were  carved  upon  the  stone. 
The  bonne  sat  at  work  upon  one  of  the  stone 
benches  which  surround  the  Arc,  we  made  gravel 
pies  on  the  step  at  her  feet  and  searched  for  shells 
in  the  sand,  or,  when  we  were  not  prevented  by  the 
guardian,  swung  on  the  iron  chains  which  divide 
the  enclosure  from  the  road.  We  paid  no  atten- 
tion whatever  to  the  inscriptions,  in  fact  we  couldn't 
read  very  well  in  those  days.  We  hardly  ever 
looked  at  the  groups  of  statuary,  except  that  there 
was  one  great  arm  carrying  a  shield,  and  a  huge 
leg  like  the  limb  in  the  Castle  of  Otranto  which 
haunted  us,  and  which  we  always  saw,  though  we 
tried  not  to  see  it.  I  never  remember  being  very 
light-hearted  or  laughing  at  my  play  up  by  the 
Arc,  a  general  sense  of  something  grim  and  great 
and  strange  and  beyond  my  small  ken  impressed 
itself  upon  me  as  we  played.  When  I  had  night- 
mares at  night  the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  with  its 
writhing  figures,  was  always  mixed  up  with  them. 
One  day  the  guardian  in  his  brass  buttons,  being 
in  a  good  humor,  allowed  us  all  to  climb  up  with- 
out paying  to  the  flat  lead  terrace  on  the  top. 
There  were  easy  steps  inside  the  walls,  and  slits 

3 


34        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

for  light  at  intervals ;  and  when  we  climbed  the 
last  steep  step  and  came  out  upon  the  sum- 
mit, we  saw  the  great  view,  the  domes  and  the 
pinnacles  and  gilt  weathercocks  of  the  lovely  city 
all  spreading  before  us,  and  the  winding  river,  and 
the  people  looking  like  grains  of  sand  blown  by 
the  wind,  and  the  carriages  crawling  like  insects, 
and  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries  in  its  lovely  old 
gardens  shining  like  a  toy.  But  somehow  the 
world  from  a  monumental  height  is  quite  different 
from  what  it  seems  from  a  curb-stone,  where  much 
more  human  impressions  are  to  be  found  ;  and  that 
disembodied  Paris,  spreading  like  a  vision,  never 
appeared  to  me  to  be  the  same  place  as  the  noisy, 
cheerful,  beloved  city  of  my  early  childish  recol- 
lections. 

The  first  house  in  v/hich  we  lived  at  Paris  was  an 
old  house  in  an  old  avenue  enclosed  by  iron  gates 
which  were  shut  at  night.  It  was  called  the  Av- 
enue Sainte  Marie  and  led  from  the  Faubourg  du 
Roule  to  the  Arc  de  Triomphe.  The  avenue  was 
planted  with  shady  trees ;  on  one  side  there  were 
houses,  on  the  other  convent  walls.  At  the  door  of 
one  of  the  houses  an  old  man  sat  in  his  chair,  who 
used  to  tell  us,  as  we  passed  by,  that  in  a  few 
months  he  would  be  a  hundred  years  old,  and  then 
they  would  put  him  into  the  papers.  I  used  to  play 
in  tlic  court-yard  belonging  to  the  house  in  which 


MY   TRIUMPHAL   ARCH  35 

we  lived.  There  was  a  pump  and  there  was  a  wall 
with  a  row  of  poplar  trees  beyond  it.  There  was  a 
faded  fresco  painted  on  the  wall,  a  dim  fountain,  a 
pale  Italian  garden,  a  washed-out  bird  frying  away, 
with  a  blue  tail,  across  long  streaks  of  mildew  that 
had  come  from  the  drippings  of  the  trees.  Frescos 
must  have  been  in  fashion  at  the  time  when  the 
Avenue  Sainte  Marie  was  built,  for  there  was  also 
a  dim  painting  on  the  convent  wall  opposite  our 
portc-cocJiirc,  representing  a  temple  in  a  garden, 
and  clouds,  and  another  bird  with  outstretched 
wings.  From  beyond  this  wall  we  used  to  hear 
the  bells  and  the  litanies  of  the  nuns.  One  night 
I  dreamed  that  I  was  walking  in  the  convent  garden 
and  that  my  father  came  out  of  the  temple  to  fetch 
me  home,  and  that  the  bird  flapped  its  wings  with  a 
shrill  cry.  I  used  to  dream  a  great  deal  when  I  was 
a  little  child,  and  then  wake  up  in  my  creaking 
wooden  bed  and  stare  at  the  dim  floating  night- 
light  like  a  little  ship  on  its  sea  of  oil.  Then  from 
the  dark  corners  of  the  room  there  used  to  come 
all  sorts  of  strange  things  sailing  up  upon  the  dark- 
ness. I  could  see  them  all,  looking  like  painted 
pictures.  There  were  flowers,  birds,  dolls,  toys, 
shining  things  of  every  description.  I  have  since 
heard  that  this  seeing  pictures  in  the  dark  is  not 
an  uncommon  faculty  among  children.  I  had  a 
vague    feeling   that   the   pictures    came    from    the 


36        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

house  of  the  nuns.  My  sister  being  a  baby,  I  had 
only  the  porter's  niece  to  play  with.  She  was 
older  than  I  was,  and  used  to  go  to  school  at 
the  convent.  She  used  to  wear  a  black  stuff  pin- 
afore and  a  blue  ribbon  with  the  image  of  the 
Virgin  round  her  neck.  As  we  played  we  could 
hear  other  music  than  that  of  the  nuns,  the  brilliant 
strains  of  Monsieur  Ernest's  piano  in  the  apartment 
over  ours.  He  was  a  kind  young  man,  very  fond 
of  children,  who  used  to  open  the  window  and  play 
to  us  brilliant  dances  and  marches,  which  we  de- 
lighted in.  When  he  ceased  we  went  back  to  our 
games. 

It  was  later  in  life  that  with  the  help,  either  of 
Justine  or  another  relation  of  the  family,  I  tried  to 
polish  up  the  stairs  as  a  surprise  for  the  porter  on 
his  return  from  an  errand.  We  got  the  long  brooms 
and  sticks  out  of  the  lodge  where  there  was  nobody 
to  be  seen,  only  an  odd  smell  and  a  great  pot  sim- 
mering by  the  fire.  One  of  us  carried  a  feather 
broom,  the  other  a  brush  with  a  strap  to  it,  and  a 
great  stick  with  a  bit  of  wax  at  one  end.  Then 
we  set  to  work,  not  forgetting  the  hissing  sound. 
Justine  flapped  about  with  the  feather  broom  and 
duster ;  I  tried  to  work  my  foot  with  the  heavy 
brush ;  but  the  brush  flies  off,  down  I  come  on 
my  nose  with  a  scream,  the  broom  clatters  echo- 
ing down  the  stairs,  the  waxed  stick  falls  over  the 


MY   TRIUMPHAL   ARCH  37 

bannisters,  doors  open,  voices  are  heard,  I  have 
thumped  my  nose,  bumped  my  forehead,  but  I  do 
not  mind  the  pain — the  disgrace,'  the  failure,  are 
what  are  so  terrible  to  bear ! 

I  cannot  clearly  remember  when  I  became  an 
Orleanist,  but  I  think  I  must  have  been  about  six 
years  old  at  the  time,  standing  tiptoe  on  the  afore- 
said curb-stone.  My  grandmother  had  changed  her 
cook  and  her  apartment,  and  I  had  happened  to 
hear  my  grandfather  say  that  Napoleon  was  a  rascal 
who  had  not  been  betrayed  by  the  English.  Then 
came  a  day — shall  I  ever  forget  it  ? — when  a  yellow 
carriage  jingled  by  with  a  beautiful  little  smiling 
boy  at  the  window,  a  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  prince. 
It  was  the  little  Comte  de  Paris,  who  would  be  a 
king  some  day,  they  told  me,  and  who  was  smiling 
and  looking  so  charming  that  then  and  there  I 
deserted  my  colors  and  went  over  to  the  camp  of 
the  Orleans.  Alas  !  that  the  lilies  of  France  should 
have  been  smirched  and  soiled  by  base  and  vulgar 
intrigues,  and  that  my  little  prince  should  have 
stepped  down  unabashed,  as  a  gray-headed  veteran, 
from  the  dignified  shrine  of  his  youth.  I  remember 
once  hearing  my  father  say  of  the  Due  d'Aumale, 
"  He  has  everything  in  his  favor — good  looks,  dig- 
nity, fine  manners,  intellect,  riches,  and,  above  all, 
misfortune  ;"  and  with  all  of  these  I  invested  the 
image  of  my  own  particular  little  prince. 


38        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITFEN   MEMOIRS 

One  micareine,  on  that  mysterious  pagan  feast 
of  the  butchers,  when  the  fat  ox,  covered  with  gar- 
lands and  with  gilded  horns,  is  led  to  sacrifice 
through  the  streets  of  Paris,  I  also,  to  my  great 
satisfaction,  was  brought  forth  to  join  the  proces- 
sion by  a  couple  of  maids,  one  of  whom  carried  a 
basket.  I  remember  finding  my  stumpy  self  in  a 
court  of  the  Tuileries,  the  fairy  ox  having  been 
brought  thither  for  the  benefit  of  the  king,  and  I 
was  hustled  to  the  front  of  a  crowd  and  stood  be- 
tween my  two  protectors  looking  up  at  a  window. 
Then  comes  an  outcry  of  cheering,  and  a  venerable, 
curly-headed  old  gentleman,  Louis  Philippe  him- 
self, just  like  all  his  pictures,  appears  for  an  instant 
behind  the  glass,  and  then  the  people  shout  again 
and  again,  and  the  window  opens,  and  the  king 
steps  out  on  to  the  balcony  handing  out  an  old 
lady  in  a  bonnet  and  frizzed  white  curls,  and,  yes, 
the  little  boy  is  there  too.  Hurrah,  hurrah  !  for  all 
the  kings  and  queens !  And  somebody  is  squeez- 
ing me  up  against  the  basket,  but  I  am  now  an  Or- 
leanist  and  ready  to  suffer  tortures  for  the  kind  old 
grandpapa  and  the  little  boy.  Now  that  I  am  a 
gray-headed  woman  I  feel  as  if  I  could  still  stand 
in  the  crowd  and  cry  hurrah  for  honest  men  who, 
with  old  Louis  PhiHppe,  would  rather  give  up  their 
crowns  than  let  their  subjects  be  fired  upon  ;  and 
if  my  little  prince,  instead  of  shabbily  intriguing 


MY   TRIUMPHAL   ARCH  39 

with  adventurers,  had  kept  to  his  grandfather's 
peaceful  philosophy,  I  could  have  cried  hurrah 
for  him  still  with  all  my  heart. 

I  suppose  we  have  most  of  us,  in  and  out  of  our 
pinafores,  stood  by  triumphal  archways  put  up  for 
other  people,  and  moralized  a  little  bit  before  pro- 
ceeding to  amuse  ourselves  with  our  own  advent- 
ures further  on.  As  I  have  said,  the  Arc  de  Tri- 
omphe  seems  mixed  up  with  all  my  early  life.  I 
remember  looking  up  at  it  on  my  way  to  my  first 
school  in  an  adjoining  street,  crossing  the  open 
space,  and  instead  of  stopping  to  pick  up  shells 
as  usual,  casting,  I  dare  say,  a  complaisant  glance 
of  superiority  at  the  gods  of  war  in  their  stony 
chariots,  who,  after  all,  never  had  much  education. 
I  was  nicely  dressed  in  a  plaid  frock,  and  wore  two 
tails  of  hair  tied  with  ribbons,  a  black  apron,  and 
two  little  black  pantalettes.  It  was  the  admired 
costume  of  all  the  young  ladies  of  the  school  to 
which  I  was  bound.  On  this  occasion  the  stony 
gods  witnessed  my  undue  elation  and  subsequent 
discomfiture  unmoved.  The  triumphal  arch  was 
certainly  not  intended  for  my  return.  I  was  led 
home  that  evening,  after  a  day  mostly  spent  in  the 
corner,  crestfallen  and  crushed  by  my  inferiority 
to  all  the  other  young  ladies  of  the  school  in  their 
black  pinafores  and  pantalettes. 


40        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

But  the  images  round  about  the  Arc  are  not  all  of 
discomfitures  and  funerals  and  terrible  things.  There 
were  also  merry-makings  to  be  remembered.  Did 
not  the  Siamese  Twins  themselves  set  up  their 
booths  in  its  shadow  in  company  with  various  wild 
Bedouins  their  companions?  I  thought  it  cruel  of 
the  nurse  not  to  take  me  in  to  see  the  show,  and 
indeed  on  one  occasion  I  ran  away  from  home  to 
visit  it  on  my  own  account.  The  expedition  was 
not  a  success,  but  Siam  has  always  seemed  to  me 
an  interesting  country  ever  since.  Besides  the 
twins  and  their  booth,  there  were  cafes  and  resting- 
places  in  those  days  all  round  about  the  Arc,  and 
people  enjoying  themselves  after  their  long  day's 
work  with  song  and  laughter.  Wild  flowers  were 
still  growing  at  the  upper  end  of  the  Champs 
Elysces  on  a  green  mound  called  the  Pelousc. 

In  the  year  '48,  when  we  walked  out  with  our 
grandparents,  the  Pelouse  had  been  dug  up  and 
levelled,  I  think,  to  give  work  to  the  starving  peo- 
ple. It  was  a  year  of  catastrophes  and  revolutions; 
— a  sort  of  "  General  Post  "  among  kings  and  gov- 
ernments. Many  of  the  promenaders  (my  grand- 
parents among  them)  used  to  wear  little  tricolor  ro- 
settes to  show  their  sympathies  with  the  Republic. 
Shall  I  ever  forget  the  sight  of  the  enthusiastic 
crowds  lining  the  way  to  see  the  President  entering 
Paris  in  a  cocked  hat  on  a  curveting  Arabian  steed 


MY   TRIUMPHAL   ARCH  41 

at  the  head  of  his  troops?  to  be  followed  in  a  year 
or  two  by  the  still  more  splendid  apparition  of  Na- 
poleon III.  riding  into  Paris  along  the  road  the 
great  Emperor's  hearse  had  taken — a  new  emperor, 
glittering  and  alive  once  more,  on  a  horse  so  beau- 
tiful and  majestic  that  to  look  upon  it  was  a  martial 
education  ! 

The  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war  were  awak- 
ened again,  and  troops  came  marching  up  the  av- 
enues as  before,  and,  what  is  even  more  vivid  to 
my  mind,  a  charming  empress  presently  rose  be- 
fore us,  winning  all  hearts  by  her  grace  and  her 
beautiful  toilettes.  My  sister  and  I  stood  by  the 
roadside  on  her  wedding-day  and  watched  her  car- 
riage rolling  past  the  Arc  to  St.  Cloud  ;  the  morn- 
ing had  been  full  of  spring  sunshine,  but  the  after- 
noon was  bleak  and  drear,  and  I  remember  how  we 
shivered  as  we  stood.  Some  years  later,  when  we 
were  no  longer  little  girls,  but  young  ladies  in  crin- 
olines, we  counted  the  guns  fired  for  the  birth  of 
the  Prince  Imperial  at  the  Tuileries. 


MY   PROFESSOR   OF   HISTORY 


IV 


Our  father  was  away  in  America,  and  we  were 
liv^ing  once  more  with  our  grandparents.  We  were 
children  no  longer,  but  were  young  ladies  supposed 
to  be  finishing  our  education.  It  will  be  seen  that  it 
was  of  a  fitful  and  backward  description.  IMacau- 
lay's  Essays,  IvanJioe  and  the  Talisman,  Herodotus, 
Milman's  History  of  the  Jezvs,  and  one  or  two  stray 
scraps  of  poetry  represented  our  studies.  Then 
came  a  vast  and  hopeless  chaos  in  our  minds,  reach- 
ing as  far  back  as  the  times  of  Charlemagne  and 
Clovis,  and  Bertha  with  the  long  foot,  and  Frede- 
gonde  who  was  always  plunging  her  dagger  into 
somebody's  back.  The  early  Merovingians  will  for 
me  ever  be  associated  with  a  faint  smell  of  snuff 
and  a  plaid  linen  pocket-handkerchief  carefully 
folded,  with  a  little,  old,  short,  stumpy  figure,  in  a 
black  cap  and  dressed  in  a  scanty  black  skirt.  The 
figure  is  that  of  my  Professor  of  History.  An  old, 
old  lady,  very  short,  very  dignified,  uttering  little 
grunts  at  intervals,  and  holding  a  pair  of  spectacles 
in  one  hand  and  a  little  old  black  fat  book  in  the 
other,  from  which,  with  many  fumblings  and  snuff- 


46         CHAPTERS    FROM   SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

takings,  the  good  soul  would  proceed  to  read  to 
us  of  murder,  battle,  rapine,  and  sudden  death,  of 
kings,  crowns,  dynasties,  and  knights  in  armor, 
while  we,  her  pupils,  listened,  trying  not  to  laugh 
when  she  turned  two  pages  at  once,  or  read  the 
same  page  twice  over  with  great  seriousness. 

My  dear  grandmother,  who  was  always  inventing 
ways  of  helping  people,  and  who  firmly  believed  in 
all  her  proteges^  having  visited  our  Madame  once 
or  twice  and  found  her  absorbed  in  the  said  history 
book,  had  arranged  that  a  series  of  historical  lect- 
ures, with  five-franc  tickets  of  admission  to  the 
course,  should  be  given  by  her  during  the  winter 
months;  and  that  after  the  lecture  (which  used  to 
take  place  in  our  sitting-room,  and  which  was  at- 
tended by  a  certain  number  of  ladies)  we  should  all 
adjourn  for  tea  to  the  blue  drawing-room,  where 
the  Major  meanwhile  had  been  able  to  enjoy  his 
after-dinner  nap  in  quiet.  He  refused  to  attend  the 
course,  saying,  after  the  first  lecture,  that  he  found 
it  dii^cult  to  follow  the  drift  of  Madame's  argu- 
ments. There  used  to  be  a  class  of  four  girls — my 
sister  and  myself,  our  cousin  Amy,  and  Laura  C,  a 
friend  of  my  own  age — and  then  the  various  ladies, 
in  bonnets,  from  up-stairs  and  down-stairs  and  next 
door.  The  lecture  lasted  an  hour  by  the  clock; 
then  the  meeting  suddenly  adjourned,  and  by  the 
time  the  golden  flowcr-vasc  pendule  in  the  drawing- 


MY    PROFESSOR    OF    HISTORY  47 

room  struck  ten  everybody  was  already  walking 
down  the  shiny  staircase  and  starting  for  home. 
Paris  streets  at  night  may  be  dark  and  muddy,  or 
freezing  cold,  but  they  never  give  one  that  chill, 
vault-like  feeling  which  London  streets  are  apt  to 
produce  when  one  turns  out  from  a  warm  fireside 
into  the  raw  night.  The  ladies  thought  nothing  of 
crossing  the  road  and  walking  along  a  boulevard  till 
they  reached  their  own  doors.  Good  old  Madame 
used  to  walk  off  with  those  of  her  pupils  who  lived 
her  way ;  they  generally  left  her  at  the  bright 
chemist's  shop  round  the  corner,  where  Madame 
Marlin,  the  chemist's  wife,  would  administer  an 
evening  dose  of  peppermint-water  to  keep  out  the 
cold — so  we  used  to  be  told  by  Madame.  The  old 
lady  lived  in  one  of  the  tail,  shabby  houses  at  the 
top  of  the  Faubourg,  just  behind  the  Arc.  We 
used  to  find  her  sitting  in  a  small  crowded  room, 
with  a  tiny  ante-room,  and  an  alcove  for  her  bed. 
There  she  lived  with  her  poodle,  Bibi,  among  the 
faded  treasures  and  ancient  snuff-boxes  and  books 
and  portraits  and  silhouettes  of  a  lifetime;  grim 
effigies  of  a  grim  past  somewhat  softened  by  dust 
and  time.  In  the  midst  of  all  the  chaos  one 
lovely  miniature  used  to  hang,  shining  like  a  star 
through  the  clouds  of  present  loneliness  and  the 
spiders'  webs  of  age  and  poverty.  This  was  the  por- 
trait of  the  beautiful  Lady  Almeria  Carpenter,  the 


48         CHAPTERS    FROM   SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

friend  of  Sir  Joshua,  with  whom  in  some  mysterious, 
romantic  way  Madame  was  connected.  Another 
equally  valued  relic  was  a  needlebook  which  had 
been  used  by  the  Duchesse  de  Praslin  on  the  day 
when  her  husband  murdered  her.  Madame's  sister 
had  been  governess  there  for  many  years,  and  had 
loved  the  duchess  dearly  and  been  valued  by  her,  and 
many  and  mysterious  were  the  confidences  poured 
into  my  grandmother's  ear  concerning  this  sad 
tragedy.  Our  cheery,  emphatic,  mysterious  old  lady 
was  very  popular  among  us  all.  One  of  her  kindest 
friends  was  my  father's  cousin,  ]\Iiss  R.,  who  had 
lived  in  Paris  all  her  life,  and  whose  visiting-list  com- 
prised any  one  in  trouble  or  poor  or  lonely  and 
afflicted.  I  think  if  it  had  not  been  for  her  help  and 
that  of  my  grandmother  our  good  old  friend  would 
have  often  gone  through  sore  trials.  When  my 
father  himself  came  to  Paris  to  fetch  us  away,  he  was 
interested  in  the  accounts  he  heard  of  the  old  lady 
from  his  mother  and  cousin.  And  Madame  is  the 
heroine  of  a  little  story  which  I  have  seen  in  print 
somewhere,  and  which  I  know  to  be  true,  for  was  I 
not  sent  one  day  to  search  for  a  certain  pill-box  in 
my  father's  room,  of  which  he  proceeded  to  empty 
the  contents  into  the  fireplace,  and  then,  drawing 
a  neat  banker's  roll  from  his  pocket,  to  fill  up  the 
little  cube  with  a  certain  number  of  new  napoleons, 
packing  them   in   closely  up   to  the  brim.    After 


MY    PROFESSOR   OF    HISTORY  49 

which,  the  cover  being  restored,  he  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing prescription  in  his  beautiful,  even  handwrit- 
ing: '■'■Madame  P.  ...  To  be  taken  occasionally 
when  required.  Signed  Dr.  W.M.  T."  Which  medi- 
cine my  grandmother,  greatly  pleased,  promised  to 
administer  to  her  old  friend  after  our  departure. 

P.S.  The  remembrance  of  this  pill-box,  and  of  my 
father's  kind  hands  packing  up  the  napoleons,  came 
to  me  long  after  at  a  time  when  misfortunes  of 
every  kind  had  fallen  upon  the  familiar  friends  and 
places  of  our  early  youth,  when  the  glare  of  burn- 
ing Paris  seemed  to  reach  us  far  away  in  our  Eng- 
lish homes,  and  we  almost  thought  we  could  hear 
the  thunders  breaking  on  the  unhappy  city.  We 
thought  of  our  poor  old  lady,  alone  with  her  dear 
Bibi,  in  the  midst  of  all  this  terror  and  destruction. 
As  we  sat  down  to  our  legs  of  mutton  we  pictured 
the  horrible  salmis  and  fricandeaitx  of  rats  and 
mice  to  which  our  neighbors  were  reduced,  the 
sufferings  so  heroically  borne.  Every  memory  of 
the  past  rose  up  to  incite  us  to  make  some  effort 
to  come  to  the  assistance  of  our  poor  old  friend  ; 
and  at  last  it  occurred  to  me  to  ask  Baroness  Mayer 
de  Rothschild,  who  was  always  ready  with  good 
help  for  others,  whether  it  would  be  possible  to 
communicate  with  my  besieged  old  lady. 

I  do  not  know  by  what  means — perhaps  if  I  knew, 


50        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN   MEMOIRS 

I  ought  not  to  say  how  communications  had  been 
established  between  the  EngHsh  Rothschilds  and 
those  who  were  still  in  Paris.  Some  trusty  and  de- 
voted retainer,  some  Porthos  belonging  to  the 
house,  had  been  able  to  get  into  Paris  carrying  let- 
ters and  messages  and  food,  and  he  was,  so  the 
Baroness  now  told  me,  about  to  return  again.  By 
this  means  I  was  told  that  I  might  send  my  letters 
and  a  draft  on  the  bank  in  Paris  so  that  poor 
Madame  could  obtain  a  little  help  of  which  she 
must  be  in  cruel  need;  and  this  being  accom- 
plished, the  letter  written  and  the  money  sent  off, 
I  was  able  with  an  easier  mind  to  enjoy  my  own 
share  of  the  good  things  of  life.  Time  passed,  the 
siege  was  raised,  and  then  came  a  day  when,  urged 
by_  circumstances,  and  perhaps  also  by  a  certain 
curiosity,  I  found  myself  starting  for  Paris  with  a 
friend,  under  the  escort  of  Mr.  Cook,  arriving  after 
a  night's  journey  through  strange  and  never-to-be- 
forgotten  experiences  at  the  Gare  du  Nord — a  de- 
serted station  among  streets  all  empty  and  silent. 
Carriages  were  no  longer  to  be  seen,  every  figure 
was  dressed  in  black,  and  the  women's  sad  faces 
and  long,  floating  crape  veils  seemed  strangely 
symbolical  and  visionary,  as  I  walked  along  to  the 
house  of  my  father's  cousin,  Charlotte  R.,  who  had 
been  my  friend  ever  since  I  could  remember.  She 
was  expecting  me  in  her  home  to  which  she  had 


MY   PROFESSOR   OF    HISTORY  51 

only  been  able  to  return  a  few  days  before.  It  is 
not  my  purpose  here  to  describe  the  strange  and 
pathetic  experiences  and  the  sights  we  saw  to- 
gether during  that  most  eventful  week;  the  sun- 
shine of  it  all,  the  smoking  ruins,  the  piteous  his- 
tories, the  strange  rebound  of  life  even  in  the  midst 
of  its  ashes.  The  Arc  itself  was  wrapped  in  sack- 
cloth to  preserve  the  impassive  gods  from  the  in- 
juries of  war.  The  great  legs  and  arms  we  repacked 
in  straw  and  saw-dust  to  protect  them.  One  of  my 
first  questions  was  for  Madame.  "  She  is  particu- 
larly well,"  said  my  cousin,  smiling.  "  She  has  added 
many  thrilling  histories  to  rc'pcrtoire,  Madame  Mar- 
tin's escape  from  the  obus,  Bibi's  horror  of  the — 
Prussians — you  must  come  and  see  her,  and  hear 
it  all  for  yourself."  "  I  particularly  want  to  see  her," 
said  I.  I  was  in  a  self-satisfied  and  not  unnatural 
frame  of  mind,  picturing  my  old  lady's  pleasure 
at  the  meeting,  her  eloquent  emotion  and  satisfac- 
tion at  the  trouble  I  had  taken  on  her  behalf.  I 
hoped  to  have  saved  her  life  ;  at  all  events  I  felt 
that  she  must  owe  many  little  comforts  to  my  ex- 
ertions, and  that  her  grateful  benediction  awaited 
me ! 

Dear  old  Madame  was  sitting  with  her  poodle  on 
her  knees  in  the  same  little  dark  and  crowded 
chamber.  She  put  down  her  spectacles,  shut  up 
her  book — I  do  believe  it  was  still  the  little  black 


52  CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

History  of  France.  She  did  not  look  in  the  least 
surprised  to  see  me  walk  in.  The  room  smelt  of 
snuff  just  as  usual ;  Bibi  leaped  up  from  her  lap, 
barking  furiously.  "Ah!  my  dear  child,"  said  the 
old  lady  calmly,  "  how  do  you  do  ?  Ah,  my  dear 
Miss  R.,  I  am  delighted  to  see  you  again  !  Only 
this  day  I  said  to  Madame  Martin,  '  I  think  Miss 
R.  will  be  sure  to  call  this  afternoon ;  it  is  some  day 
since  she  come.'  "  Then  turning  to  me,  "  Well,  my 
dear  A.,  and  how  do  you,  and  how  do  you  all  ?  Are 
you  come  to  stay  in  our  poor  Paris  ?  Arc  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  T.  with  you  ?  Oh  !  oh  !  Oh,  those  Prussians ! 
those  abominable  monsters!  My  poor  Bibi,  he 
was  ready  to  tear  them  to  pieces  ;  he  and  I  could 
not  sleep  for  the  guns.  Madame  Martin,  she  say 
to  me,  *0h  !  Madame,  can  you  believ^e  such  wicked- 
ness?' I  say  to  her,  'it  is  abominable.'  Oh,  there 
is  no  word  for  it !" 

All  this  was  oddly  familiar,  and  yet  strangely 
thrilling  and  unreal  as  was  all  the  rest.  There  is  no 
adequate  expression  for  the  strange  waking  night- 
mare which  seems  to  seize  one  when  by  chance  one 
meets  a  whole  country  suffering  from  one  over- 
powering idea,  and  when  one  hears  the  story  of 
each  individual  experience  in  turn  repeated  and  re- 
peated. 

At  last,  my  own  personal  interests  rising  up 
again,  I  said,  not  without  some  curiosity:     "And 


MY    PROFESSOR    OF    HISTORY  53 

now  I  want  to  ask  you,  did  you  get  my  letter, 
Madame,  and  did  you  receive  the  money  safely 
from  Messrs.  Rothschilds'  bank  ?" 

"  I  thank  you,  my  dear  child.  I  received  it — I 
was  about  to  mention  the  subject — I  knew  you 
would  not  forget  your  old  friend,"  said  Madame 
solemnly.  "  I  needed  the  money  very  much,"  with 
a  shake  of  the  head.  "  I  was  all  the  more  grateful 
that  it  came  at  the  time  it  did.  You  will  be  grati- 
fied, I  know,  to  learn  the  use  to  which  I  put  it. 
They  had  come  round  to  every  house  in  the  street 
only  that  morning.  Madame  Martin  was  with  me." 
Here  Madame  took  a  pinch  of  snuff  very  seriously. 
"  She  go  to  the  banker's  for  me,  and  she  took  the 
money  at  once  and  inscribe  my  name  on  the  list." 

"The  list?"  said  I,  much  bewildered, 

"  I  subscribe  it,"  said  Madame,  "  to  the  cannon 
which  was  presented  by  our  qnarticr  to  the  city  of 
Paris." 

"What,  all  of  it?"  said  I. 

''  Yes,  all  of  it,"  said  she.  "  Do  you  suppose  I 
should  have  kept  any  of  it  back?" 


MY    WITCHES'    CALDRON 


V 


It  happily  does  not  always  follow  that  one  cares 
for  an  author  in  exact  proportion  to  the  sale  of  his 
books,  or  even  to  the  degree  of  their  merit  ;  other- 
wise some  might  be  overpowered  by  friends,  and 
others  remain  solitary  all  their  lives  long.  It  also 
does  not  always  follow  that  people  who  write  books 
are  those  who  see  most  of  one  another.  On  the 
contrary,  authors  as  a  rule,  I  think,  prefer  play- 
mates of  other  professions  than  their  own,  and 
don't  keep  together  in  the  same  way  that  soldiers 
do  for  instance,  or  dandies,  or  lawyers,  or  members 
of  Parliament.  Lawyers,  politicians,  soldiers,  and 
even  doctors,  do  a  great  deal  of  their  work  together 
in  one  another's  company;  but  the  hours  don't  suit 
for  literary  people,  and  one  rarely  hears  of  five  or  six 
authors  sitting  down  in  a  row  to  write  books.  They 
are  generally  shut  up  apart  in  different  studies,  with 
strict  orders  given  that  nobody  is  to  be  shown  in. 

This  was  my  father's  rule,  only  it  was  constantly 
broken  ;  and  many  persons  used  to  pass  in  and  out 
during  his  working-times,  coming  to  consult  him, 
or  to  make  suggestions ;  some  came  to  call,  others 


58         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

brought  little  poems  and  articles  for  the  CornJiill. 
.  .  .  As  I  write  on  it  seems  to  me  that  my  memory 
is  a  sort  of  Witches'  Caldron,  frpm  which  rise  one 
by  one  these  figures  of  the  past,  and  they  go  by  in 
turn  and  vanish  one  by  one  into  the  mist — some 
are  kings  and  queens  in  their  own  right,  some  are 
friends,  some  are  dependants.  From  my  caldron 
rise  many  figures  crowned  and  uncrowned,  some  of 
whom  I  have  looked  upon  once  perhaps,  and  then 
realized  them  in  after-life  from  a  different  point  of 
view.  Now,  perhaps,  looking  back,  one  can  tell 
their  worth  better  than  at  the  time ;  one  knows 
which  were  the  true  companions,  which  were  the 
teachers  and  spiritual  pastors,  which  were  but  shad 
ows  after  all.  The  most  splendid  person  I  ever  re 
member  seeing  had  a  little  pencil  sketch  in  his 
hand,  which  he  left  behind  him  upon  the  table.  It 
was  a  very  feeble  sketch  ;  it  seemed  scarcely  possi- 
ble  that  so  grand  a  being  should  not  be  a  bolder 
draughtsman.  He  appeared  to  us  one  Sunday 
morning  in  the  sunshine.  When  I  came  down  to' 
breakfast  I  found  him  sitting  beside  my  father  at 
the  table,  with  an  untasted  cup  of  tea  before  him  ; 
he  seemed  to  fill  the  bow-window  with  radiance  as 
if  he  were  Apollo  ;  he  leaned  against  his  chair  with 
one  elbow  resting  on  its  back,  with  shining  studs 
and  curls  and  boots.  We  could  see  his  horse  look- 
ins  in  at  us  over  the  blind.     It  was  indeed  a  siijht 


MY  WITCHES    CALDRON  59 

for  little  girls  to  remember  all  their  lives.  I  think 
my  father  had  a  certain  weakness  for  dandies, 
those  knights  of  the  broadcloth  and  shining  fronts. 
Magnificent  apparitions  used  to  dawn  upon  us  in 
the  hall  sometimes,  glorious  beings  on  their  way  to 
the  study,  but  this  one  outshone  them  all.  I  came 
upon  a  description  in  Lord  Lamington's  Book  of 
Dandies  the  other  day,  which  once  more  evoked 
the  shining  memory.  Our  visitor  was  Count 
D'Orsay,  of  whom  Lord  Lamington  says  : 

"  When  he  appeared  in  the  perfection  of  dress  (for  the 
tailor's  art  had  not  died  out  with  George  IV.),  with  that 
expression  of  self-confidence  and  complacency  which  the 
sense  of  superiority  gives,  he  was  the  observed  of  all!  In 
those  days  men  took  great  pains  with  themselves,  they  did 
not  slouch  and  moon  thro'  life.  ...  I  have  frequently  ridden 
down  to  Richmond  with  Count  D'Orsay  ;  a  striking  figure 
he  was;  his  blue  coat,  thrown  well  back  to  show  the  wide 
expanse  of  snowy  shirt-front,  his  buff  waistcoat,  his  light 
leathers  and  polished  boots,  his  well-curled  whiskers  and 
handsome  countenance;  a  wide-brimmed  glossy  hat,  and 
spotless  white  gloves." 

Mr.  Richard  Doyle  used  to  tell  us  a  little  story 
of  a  well-known  literary  man  who  was  so  carried 
away  by  the  presence  of  the  brilliant  D'Orsay 
at  some  city  banquet  that  in  a  burst  of  enthusi- 
asm he  was  heard  to  call  aloud,  above  the  din  of 
voices,  "  Waiter !  for  Heaven's  sake  bring  melted 
butter  for  the  flounder  of  the  Count."     The  Count 


6o         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

must  have  been  well  used  to  melted  butter,  as  he 
proceeded  on  his  triumphant  road,  nor  did  his 
genius  fail  him  to  the  last.  I  have  read  some- 
where a  curious  description  of  the  romantic  sar- 
cophagus he  finally  devised  for  himself  in  a  sort  of 
temple,  a  flight  of  marble  steps  leading  to  a  marble 
shrine  where  he  was  duly  laid  when  he  died,  not 
long  after  his  return  to  his  own  country  and  to  the 
land  of  his  fathers.  He  is  of  that  race  of  men  who 
lived  in  the  beginning  of  the  century,  magnificent 
performers  of  life's  commonplaces,  representative 
heroes  and  leaders  of  the  scene.  Byron  belonged 
to  the  brilliant  company,  and  greatly  admired 
Count  D'Orsay.  There  is  a  certain  absence  of  the 
florid,  a  frozen  coldness  in  the  fashion  of  to-day 
which  strikes  those  who  remember  the  more  flam- 
boyant generation. 

I  remember  a  visit  from  another  hero  of  those 
times.  We  were  walking  across  Kensington  Square 
early  one  morning,  when  we  heard  some  one  hur- 
rying after  us  and  calling,  "  Thackeray,  Thackeray  l" 
This  was  also  one  of  Byron's  friends  • —  a  bright- 
eyed,  active  old  man,  with  long,  wavy  white  hair, 
and  a  picturesque  cloak  flung  over  one  shoulder.  I 
can  see  him  still,  as  he  crossed  the  corner  of  the 
square  and  followed  us  with  a  light,  rapid  step.  IMy 
father,  stopping  short,  turned  back  to  meet  him, 
greeting  him  kindly,  and  bringing  him  home  with 


MY  witches'  caldron  6i 

us  to  the  old  brown  house  at  the  corner  where  we 
were  then  Hving,  There  was  a  sort  of  eagerness 
and  vividness  of  manner  about  the  stranger  which 
was  very  impressive.  You  could  not  help  watch- 
ing him  and  his  cloak,  which  kept  slipping  from 
its  place,  and  which  he  caught  at  again  and  again. 
We  wondered  at  his  romantic,  foreign  looks,  and 
his  gayety  and  bright,  eager  way.  Afterwards  we 
were  told  that  this  was  Leigh  Hunt.  We  knew 
his  name  very  well,  for  on  the  drawing-room  table, 
in  company  with  various  Ruskins  and  Punches,  lay 
a  prett)-,  shining  book  called  A  Jar  of  Homy  from 
Moiuit  Hyhla,  from  which,  in  that  dilettante,  childish 
fashion  which  is  half  play,  half  impatience,  and  search 
for  something  else,  we  had  contrived  to  extract  our 
own  allowance  of  honey.  It  was  still  an  event  to 
see  a  real  author  in  those  days,  specially  an  au- 
thor with  a  long  cloak  flung  over  his  shoulder ; 
though,  for  the  matter  of  that,  it  is  still  and  always 
will  be  an  event  to  see  the  faces  and  hear  the  voices 
of  those  whose  thoughts  have  added  something 
delightful  to  our  lives.  Not  very  long  afterwards 
came  a  different  visitor,  still  belonging  to  that  same 
company  of  people.  I  had  thrown  open  the  dining- 
room  door  and  come  in,  looking  for  something,  and 
then  I  stopped  short,  for  the  room  was  not  empty. 
A  striking  and  somewhat  alarming -looking  person 
stood  alone  by  the  fireplace  with  folded  arms — a 


62         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

dark,  impressive -looking  man,  not  tall,  but  broad 
and  brown  and  weather-beaten — gazing  with  a  sort 
of  scowl  at  his  own  reflection  in  the  glass.  As  I 
entered  he  turned  slowly  and  looked  at  me  over 
his  shoulder.  This  time  it  w^as  Trelawny,  Byron's 
biographer  and  companion,  who  had  come  to  see 
my  father.  He  frowned,  walked  deliberately  and 
slowly  from  the  room,  and  I  saw  him  no  more. 
As  I  have  said,  all  these  people  now  seem  almost 
like  figures  out  of  a  fairy  tale.  One  could  almost 
as  w^ell  imagine  Sindbad,  or  Prince  Charming,  or  the 
Seven  Champions  of  Christendom  dropping  in  for 
an  hour's  chat.  But  each  generation,  however  mat- 
ter-of-fact it  may  be,  sets  up  fairy  figures  in  turn, 
to  wonder  at  and  delight  in.  I  had  not  then  read 
any  of  the  books  which  have  since  appeared,  though 
I  had  heard  my  elders  talking,  and  I  knew  from 
hearsay  something  of  the  strange,  pathetic,  irration- 
al histories  of  these  by-gone  wanderers  searching 
the  world  for  the  Golden  Fleece  and  the  Enchanted 
Gardens.  These  were  the  only  members  of  that 
special,  impracticable,  romantic  crew  of  Argonauts 
I  ever  saw,  though  I  have  read  and  reread  their 
histories  and  diaries  so  that  I  seem  to  know  them 
all,  and  can  almost  hear  their  voices. 

One  of  the  most  notable  persons  who  ever  came 
into  our  old  bow-windowed  drawing-room  in  Young 


MY    witches'  caldron  63 

Street  is  a  guest  never  to  be  forgotten  by  me — a 
tiny,  delicate  little  person,  whose  small  hand  nev- 
ertheless grasped  a  mighty  lever  which  set  all  the 
literary  world  of  that  day  vibrating.  I  can  still  see 
the  scene  quite  plainly  ! — the  hot  summer  evening, 
the  open  windows,  the  carriage  driving  to  the  door 
as  we  all  sat  silent  and  expectant ;  my  father,  who 
rarely  waited,  waiting  with  us ;  our  governess  and 
my  sister  and  I  all  in  a  row,  and  prepared  for  the 
great  event.  We  saw  the  carriage  stop,  and  out  of 
it  sprang  the  active,  well-knit  figure  of  young  Mr. 
George  Smith,  who  was  bringing  Miss  Bronte  to 
see  our  father.  My  father,  who  had  been  walking 
up  and  down  the  room,  goes  out  into  the  hall  to 
meet  his  guests,  and  then,  after  a  moment's  delay, 
the  door  opens  wide,  and  the  two  gentlemen  come 
in,  leading  a  tiny,  delicate,  serious  little  lady,  pale, 
with  fair,  straight  hair,  and  steady  eyes.  She  may 
be  a  little  over  thirty ;  she  is  dressed  in  a  little 
barege  dress  with  a  pattern  of  faint  green  moss. 
She  enters  in  mittens,  in  silence,  in  seriousness ; 
our  hearts  are  beating  with  wild  excitement.  This, 
then,  is  the  authoress,  the  unknown  power  whose 
books  have  set  all  London  talking,  reading,  specu- 
lating ;  some  people  even  say  our  father  wrote  the 
books— the  wonderful  books.  To  say  that  w^e  little 
girls  had  been  given  Jane  Eyre  to  read  scarcely  rep- 
resents the  facts  of  the  case ;  to  say  that  we  had 


64         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

taken  it  without  leave,  read  bits  here  and  read  bits 
there,  been  carried  away  by  an  undreamed-of  and 
hitherto  unimagined  whirlwind  into  things,  times, 
places,  all  utterly  absorbing  and  at  the  same  time 
absolutely  unintelligible  to  us,  would  more  accu- 
rately describe  our  states  of  mind  on  that  summer's 
evening  as  we  look  at  Jane  Eyre — the  great  Jane 
Eyre  —  the  tiny  little  lady.  The  moment  is  so 
breathless  that  dinner  comes  as  a  relief  to  the  so- 
lemnity of  the  occasion,  and  we  all  smile  as  my  fa- 
ther stoops  to  offer  his  arm,  for,  genius  though  she 
may  be,  Miss  Bronte  can  barely  reach  his  elbow. 
My  own  personal  impressions  are  that  she  is  some- 
what grave  and  stern,  specially  to  forward  little 
girls  who  wish  to  chatter.  Mr.  George  Smith  has 
since  told  me  how  she  afterwards  remarked  upon 
my  father's  wonderful  forbearance  and  gentleness 
with  our  uncalled-for  incursions  into  the  conversa- 
tion. She  sat  gazing  at  him  with  kindling  eyes  of 
interest,  lighting  up  with  a  sort  of  illumination  ev- 
ery now  and  then  as  she  answered  him.  I  can  see 
her  bending  forward  over  the  table,  not  eating,  but 
listening  to  what  he  said  as  he  carved  the  dish  be- 
fore him. 

I  think  it  must  have  been  on  this  very  occasion 
that  my  father  invited  some  of  his  friends  in  the 
evening  to  meet  Miss  Bronte,  for  everybody  was  in- 
terested and  anxious  to  see  her.     Mrs.  Crowe,  the 


MY   witches'  caldron  65 

reciter  of  ghost-stories,  was  there.  Mrs.  Brookfield, 
Mrs.  Carlyle — Mr.  Carlyle  liimscif  was  present,  so  I 
am  told,  railing  at  the  appearance  of  cockneys 
upon  Scotch  mountain-sides ;  there  were  also  too 
many  Americans  for  his  taste  ;  "  but  the  Americans 
were  as  God  compared  to  the  cockneys,"  says  the 
philosopher.  Besides  the  Carlyles,  there  were  Mrs. 
Elliott  and  Miss  Perry,  Mrs.  Procter  and  her  daugh- 
ter, most  of  my  father's  habitual  friends  and  com- 
panions. In  the  recent  life  of  Lord  Houghton  I 
was  amused  to  see  a  note  quoted  in  which  Lord 
Houghton  also  was  convened.  Would  that  he  had 
been  present ! — perhaps  the  party  would  have  gone 
off  better.  It  was  a  gloomy  and  a  silent  evening. 
Every  one  waited  for  the  brilliant  conversation 
which  never  began  at  all.  Miss  Bronte  retired  to 
the  sofa  in  the  study,  and  murmured  a  low  word 
now  and  then  to  our  kind  governess,  Miss  Truelock. 
The  room  looked  very  dark ;  the  lamp  began  to 
smoke  a  little ;  the  conversation  grew  dimmer  and 
more  dim  ;  the  ladies  sat  round  still  expectant ;  my 
father  was  too  much  perturbed  by  the  gloom  and 
the  silence  to  be  able  to  cope  with  it  at  all.  Mrs. 
Brookfield,  who  was  in  the  doorway  by  the  study, 
near  the  corner  in  which  Miss  Bronte  was  sitting, 
leaned  forward  with  a  little  commonplace,  since  brill- 
iance was  not  to  be  the  order  of  the  evening.  "Do 
you  like  London,  Miss  Bronte?"  she  said.    Another 

5 


66         CHAPTERS   FROM   SOME   UNWRITTEN   MEMOIRS 

silence,  a  pause;  then  Miss  Bronte  answers  "Yes" 
and  "  No"  very  gravely.  My  sister  and  I  were  much 
too  young  to  be  bored  in  those  days ;  alarmed,  im- 
pressed we  might  be,  but  not  yet  bored.  A  party 
was  a  party,  a  lioness  was  a  lioness ;  and — shall  I 
confess  it? — at  that  time  an  extra  dish  of  biscuits 
was  enough  to  mark  the  evening.  We  felt  all  the 
importance  of  the  occasion — tea  spread  in  the  din- 
ing-room, ladies  in  the  drawing-room.  We  roamed 
about  inconveniently,  no  doubt,  and  excitedly;  and 
in  one  of  my  excursions  crossing  the  hall,  towards 
the  close  of  the  entertainment,  I  was  surprised  to 
see  my  father  opening  the  front  door  with  his  hat 
on.  He  put  his  fingers  to  his  lips,  walked  out  into 
the  darkness,  and  shut  the  door  quietly  behind 
him.  When  I  went  back  to  the  drawing-room 
again,  the  ladies  asked  me  where  he  was.  I  vague- 
ly answered  that  I  thought  he  was  coming  back.  I 
was  puzzled  at  the  time,  nor  was  it  all  made  clear 
to  me  till  long  years  afterwards,  when  one  day  Mrs. 
Procter  asked  me  if  I  knew  what  had  happened 
once  when  my  father  had  invited  a  party  to  meet 
Jane  Eyre  at  his  house.  It  was  one  of  the  dullest 
evenings  she  had  ever  spent  in  her  life,  she  said. 
And  then  with  a  good  deal  of  humor  she  described 
the  situation — the  ladies  who  had  all  come  expect- 
ing so  much  delightful  conversation,  and  how  as 
the  evening  went  on  the  gloom  and  the  constraint 


MY  witches'  caldron  67 

increased,  and  how  finally,  after  the  departure  of 
the  more  important  guests,  overwhelmed  by  the 
situation,  my  father  had  quietly  left  the  room,  left 
the  house,  and  gone  off  to  his  club.  The  ladies 
waited,  wondered,  and  finally  departed  also ;  and 
as  we  were  going  up  to  bed  with  our  candles  after 
everybody  was  gone,  I  remember  two  pretty  Miss 
L s,  in  shiny  silk  dresses,  arriving,  full  of  ex- 
pectation. .  .  .  We  still  said  we  thought  our  father 

would  soon  be  back ;  but  the  Miss  L s  declined 

to  wait  upon  the  chance,  laughed,  and  drove  away 
again  almost  immediately. 

Since  writing  the  preceding  lines,  I  have  visited 
Jane  Eyre  land,  and  stayed  in  the  delightful  home 
where  she  used  to  stay  with  Mrs.  Gaskell.  I  have 
seen  signs  and  tokens  of  her  presence,  faint  sketch- 
es vanishing  away,  the  delicate  writing  in  the  beau- 
tiful books  she  gave  that  warm  friend  ;  and  I  have 
also  looked  for  and  reread  the  introduction  to 
Einuia,  that  **  last  sketch  "  and  most  touching  chap- 
ter in  the  never-to-be-written  book  of  Charlotte 
Bronte's  happy  married  life.  The  paper  is  signed 
"  W.  M.  T. ;"  it  was  written  by  the  editor,  and  is 
printed  in  one  of  the  very  earliest  numbers  of  the 
Cornhill  Magazine. 

I  remember  the  trembling  little  frame,  the  little 


68         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

hand,  the  great  honest  eyes  ;  an  impetuous  honesty 
seemed  to  me  to  characterize  the  woman.  ...  I  fan- 
cied an  austere  little  Joan  of  Arc  marching  in  upon 
us  and  rebuking  our  easy  lives,  our  easy  morals. 
She  gave  me  the  impression  of  being  a  very  pure 
and  lofty  and  high-minded  person.  A  great  and 
holy  reverence  of  right  and  truth  seemed  to  be 
with  her  always.  Such  in  our  brief  interview  she 
appeared  to  me.  As  one  thinks  of  that  life  so  no- 
ble, so  lonely — of  that  passion  for  truth — of  those 
nights  and  nights  of  eager  study,  swarming  fancies, 
invention,  depression,  elation,  and  prayer ;  as  one 
reads  of  the  necessarily  incomplete  though  most 
touching  and  admirable  history  of  the  heart  that 
throbbed  in  this  one  little  frame  —  of  this  one 
among  the  myriads  of  souls  that  have  lived  and 
died  on  this  great  earth — this  great  earth ! — this 
little  speck  in  the  infinite  universe  of  God,  with 
what  wonder  do  we  think  of  to-day,  with  what  awe 
await  to-morrow,  when  that  which  is  now  but  dark- 
ly seen  shall  be  clear ! 

As  I  write  out  what  my  father's  hand  has  writ- 
ten my  gossip  is  hushed,  and  seems  to  me  like  the 
lamp  smoke  in  the  old  drawing-room  compared  to 
the  light  of  the  summer's  night  in  the  street  outside. 

I  am  suddenly  conscious  as  I  write  that  my  ex- 


MY   witches'   caldron  69 

pcrienccs  arc  very  partial  ;  but  a  witch's  caldron 
must  needs  after  all  contain  heterogeneous  scraps, 
and  mine,  alas !  can  be  no  exception  to  the  rest. 
It  produces  nothing  more  valuable  than  odds  and 
ends  happily  harmless  enough,  neither  sweltered 
venom  nor  fillet  of  finny  snake,  but  the  back  of 
one  great  man's  head,  the  hat  and  umbrella  of  an- 
other. The  first  time  I  ever  saw  Mr.  Gladstone  I 
only  saw  the  soles  of  his  boots.  A  friend  had  taken 
me  into  the  ventilator  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
where  we  listened  to  a  noble  speech  and  watched 
the  two  shadows  on  the  grating  overhead  of  the 
feet  of  the  messenger  of  glad  tidings.  One  special 
back  I  cannot  refrain  from  writing  down,  in  a  dark 
blue  frock-coat  and  strapped  trousers,  walking  lei- 
surely before  us  up  Piccadilly.  The  sun  is  shining, 
and  an  odd  sort  of  brass  buckle  which  fastens  an 
old-fashioned  stock,  flashes  like  a  star.  "  Do  look  !" 
I  say.  "  Who  is  that  old  gentleman  ?"  "  That  old 
gentleman  !  Why,  that  is  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton," said  my  father.  On  another  occasion  I  re- 
member some  one  coming  up  to  us  and  beginning 
to  talk  very  charmingly,  and  among  other  things 
describing  some  new  lord  mayor  who  had  been 
in  state  to  a  theatrical  performance,  by  which  it 
seemed  he  had  been  much  affected.  "  I  cried,  I  do 
assure  you,"  the  lord  mayor  had  said,  "and  as  for 
the  lady  mayoress,  she  cry  too ;"  and  the  gentle- 


70         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

man  smiled  and  told  the  little  story  so  dryly  and 
drolly  that  my  sister  and  I  couldn't  help  laughing, 
and  we  went  on  repeating  to  one  another  after- 
wards, "  As  for  the  lady  mayoress,  she  cry  too." 
And  then  as  usual  we  asked  who  was  that.  "  Don't 
you  know  Lord  Palmerston  by  sight?"  said  my  fa- 
ther. 

I  have  a  friend  who  declares  that  Fate  is  a  hu- 
morist, linking  us  all  together  by  strangest  whims, 
even  by  broad  jokes  at  times ;  and  this  vague  little 
humor  of  the  weeping  lady  mayoress  is  my  one  per- 
sonal link  with  the  great  Whig  administrator  of  the 
last  generation. 

Another  miscellaneous  apparition  out  of  my  cal- 
dron rises  before  me  as  I  write.  On  a  certain  day 
we  went  to  call  at  Mrs.  Procter's  with  our  father. 
We  found  an  old  man  standing  in  the  middle  of 
the  room,  taking  leave  of  his  hostess,  nodding  his 
head — he  was  a  little  like  a  Chinese  mandarin  with 
an  ivory  face.  His  expression  never  changed,  but 
seemed  quite  fixed.  He  knew  my  father,  and  spoke 
to  him  and  to  us  too,  still  in  this  odd,  fixed  way. 
Then  he  looked  at  my  sister.  "  My  little  girl,"  he 
said  to  her,  "  will  you  come  and  live  with  me  ?  You 
shall  be  as  happy  as  the  day  is  long;  you  shall  have 
a  white  pony  to  ride,  and  feed  upon  red -currant 
jelly."  This  prospect  was  so  alarming  and  unex- 
pected that  the  poor  little  girl  suddenly  blushed  up 


MY   witches'  caldron  7 1 

and  burst  into  tears.  The  old  man  was  Mr.  Sam- 
uel Rogers,  but  happily  he  did  not  see  her  cry,  for 
he  was  already  on  his  way  to  the  door. 

My  father  was  very  fond  of  going  to  the  play, 
and  he  used  to  take  us  when  we  were  children,  one 
on  each  side  of  him,  in  a  hansom.  He  used  to  take 
us  to  the  opera  too,  which  was  less  of  a  treat.  Mag- 
nificent envelopes,  with  unicorns  and  heraldic  em- 
blazonments, used  to  come  very  frequently,  contain- 
ing tickets  and  boxes  for  the  opera.  In  those  days 
we  thought  everybody  had  boxes  for  the  opera  as 
a  matter  of  course.  We  used  to  be  installed  in  the 
front  places  with  our  chins  resting  on  the  velvet 
ledges  of  the  box.  For  a  time  it  used  to  be  very 
delightful,  then  sometimes  I  used  suddenly  to  wake 
up  to  find  the  singing  still  going  on  and  on  as  in  a 
dream.  I  can  still  see  Lablache,  a  huge  reverberat- 
ing mountain,  a  sort  of  Olympus,  thundering  forth 
glorious  sounds,  and  addressing  deep  resounding 
notes  to  what  seemed  to  me  then  a  sort  of  fairy  in 
white.  She  stood  on  tiny  feet,  she  put  up  a  deli- 
cate finger  and  sent  forth  a  sweet  vibration  of  song 
in  answer,  sweeter,  shriller,  more  charming  every 
instant.  Did  she  fly  right  up  into  the  air,  or  was  it 
my  own  head  that  came  down  with  a  sleepy  nod  ? 
I  slept,  I  awoke ;  and  each  time  I  was  conscious  of 
this  exquisite  floating  ripple  of  music  flowing  in 
and  out  of  my  dreams.     The  singer  was  Mademoi- 


72         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

selle  Sontag ;  it  was  the  "  Elisire,"  or  some  such 
opera,  overflowing  like  a  lark's  carol.  All  the  great 
golden  house  applauded  ;  my  father  applauded.  I 
longed  to  hear  more,  but  in  vain  I  struggled,  I  only 
slumbered  again,  waking  from  minute  to  minute  to 
see  the  lovely  little  lady  in  white  still  pouring  forth 
her  melody  to  the  thousand  lights  and  people.  I 
find  when  I  consult  my  faithful  confidante  and  sym- 
pathizer in  these  small  memories  of  what  is  now  so 
nearly  forgotten,  that  I  am  not  alone  in  my  admir- 
ing impressions  of  this  charming  person.  My  con- 
fidante is  the  Biographic  Genera le,  where  I  find  an 
account,  no  sleepy  visionary  impression,  such  as  my 
own,  but  a  very  definite  and  charming  portrait  of 
the  bright  fairy  of  my  dreams,  of  Mademoiselle 
Sontag,  Comtesse  Rossi,  who  came  to  London  in 
1849  • — ''  O'"^  remarquait  surtout  la  limpidite  de  ses 
gammes  chromatiques  et  I'eclat  de  ses  trilles  .  .  . 
Et  toutes  ces  merveilles  s'accomplissaient  avec  une 
grace  parfaite,  sans  que  le  regard  fut  jamais  attriste 
par  le  moindre  effort.  La  figure  charmante  de  Ma- 
demoiselle Sontag,  ses  beaux  yeux  bleus,  limpides 
et  doux,  ses  formes  elegantes,  sa  taille  elancee  et 
souplc  achevaient  le  tableau  et  completaient  I'en- 
chantement." 

It  seems  sad  to  have  enjoyed  this  delightful  per- 
formance only  in  one's  dreams,  but  under  these  hu- 
miliating circumstances,  when  the  whole  world  was 


MY    WITCHES    CALDRON  73 

heaving  and  struggling  to  hear  the  great  singer  of 
the  North,  and  when  the  usual  box  arrived  for  the 
"  Figlia  del  Reggimento,"  my  grandmother,  who 
was  with  us,  invited  two  friends  of  her  own,  grown 
up  and  accustomed  to  keep  awake,  and  my  sister 
and  I  were  not  included  in  the  party.  We  were  not 
disappointed,  we  imagined  the  songs  for  ourselves 
as  children  do.  We  gathered  all  our  verbenas  and 
geraniums  for  a  nosegay  and  gave  it  to  our  guests 
to  carry,  and  watched  the  carriage  roll  off  in  the 
twilight  with  wild  hopes,  unexpressed,  that  perhaps 
the  flowers  would  be  cast  upon  the  stage  at  the  feet 
of  the  great  singer.  But  though  the  flowers  re- 
turned home  again  crushed  and  dilapidated,  and 
though  we  did  not  hear  the  song,  it  was  a  reality 
for  mc,  and  lasted  until  a  day  long  years  after,  when 
I  heard  that  stately  and  glorious  voice  flashing  into 
my  darkness  with  a  shock  of  amazement  never  to 
be  forgotten,  and  then  and  there  realized  how  fu- 
tile an  imagination  may  be. 

Alas !  I  never  possessed  a  note  of  music  of  my 
own,  though  I  have  cared  for  it  in  a  patient,  unre- 
quited way  all  my  life  long.  My  father  always  loved 
music  and  understood  it  too;  he  knew  his  opera 
tunes  by  heart.  I  have  always  liked  the  little  story 
of  his  landing  with  his  companions  at  Malta  on  his 
way  to  the  East,  and  as  no  one  of  the  company 
happened  to  speak  Italian  he  was  able  to  interpret 


74         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

for  the  whole  party  by  humming  lines  from  various 
operas,  "  *  Un  biglietto — Eccolo  qua,'  "  says  my  fa- 
ther to  the  man  from  the  shore,  "  '  Lascia  darem'  la 
mano,' "  and  he  helped  Lady  T.  up  the  gangway, 
and  so  on.  He  used  sometimes  to  bring  Mr.  Ella 
home  to  dine  with  him,  and  he  liked  to  hear  his 
interesting  talk  about  music.  Through  Mr,  Ella's 
kindness  the  doors  of  the  Musical  Union  flew  open 
wide  to  us. 

My  father  used  to  write  in  his  study  at  the  back 
of  the  house  in  Young  Street.  The  vine  shaded 
his  two  windows,  which  looked  out  upon  the  bit  of 
garden  and  the  medlar-tree  and  the  Spanish  jas- 
mines of  which  the  yellow  flowers  scented  our  old 
brick  walls.  I  can  remember  the  tortoise  belong- 
ing to  the  boys  next  door  crawling  along  the  top 
of  the  wall  where  they  had  set  it,  and  making  its 
way  between  the  jasmine  sprigs.  Jasmines  won't 
grow  now  any  more,  as  they  did  then,  in  the  gar- 
dens of  Kensington,  nor  will  medlars  and  vine  trees 
take  root  and  spread  their  green  branches  ;  only 
herbs  and  bulbs,  such  as  lilies  and  Solomon's  seals, 
seem  to  flourish,  though  I  have  a  faint  hope  that 
all  the  things  people  put  in  will  come  up  all  right 
some  centuries  hence,  when  London  is  resting  and 
at  peace,  and  has  turned  into  the  grass-grown  ruin 
one  so  often  hears  described.  Our  garden  was  not 
tidy  (though  on  one  grand  occasion  a  man  came 


MY   WITCHES     CALDRON  75 

to  mow  the  grass),  but  it  was  full  of  sweet  things. 
There  were  verbenas — red,  blue,  and  scented  ;  and 
there  were  lovely  stacks  of  flags,  blades  of  green 
with  purple  heads  between,  and  bunches  of  Lon- 
don-pride growing  luxuriantly;  and  there  were 
some  blush-roses  at  the  end  of  the  garden  which 
were  not  always  quite  eaten  up  by  the  caterpillars. 
Lady  Duff  Gordon  came  to  stay  with  us  once  (it 
was  on  that  occasion,  I  think,  that  the  grass  was 
mowed),  and  she  afterwards  sent  us  some  doves, 
which  used  to  hang  high  up  in  a  wicker  cage  from 
the  windows  of  the  school-room.  The  top  school- 
room w^as  over  my  father's  bedroom,  and  the  bed- 
room was  over  the  study  where  he  used  to  write. 
I  liked  the  top  school -room  the  best  of  all  the 
rooms  in  the  dear  old  house ;  the  sky  was  in  it,  and 
the  evening  bells  used  to  ring  into  it  across  the 
garden,  and  seemed  to  come  in  dancing  and  clang- 
ing with  the  sunset ;  and  the  floor  sloped  so  that  if 
you  put  down  a  ball  it  would  roll  in  a  leisurely  way 
right  across  the  room  of  its  own  accord.  And  then 
there  was  a  mystery  —  a  small  trap -door  between 
the  windows  which  we  never  could  open.  Where 
did  not  that  trap-door  lead  to?  It  was  the  gate- 
way of  Paradise,  of  many  paradises  to  us.  We  kept 
our  dolls,  our  bricks,  our  books,  our  baby-houses  in 
the  top  room,  and  most  of  our  stupid  little  fancies. 
My  little  sister  had  a  menagerie  of  snails  and  flies 


76         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

in  the  sunny  window-sill ;  these  latter,  chiefly  inva- 
lids rescued  out  of  milk-jugs,  lay  upon  rose-leaves 
in  various  little  pots  and  receptacles.  She  was 
very  fond  of  animals,  and  so  was  my  father  —  at 
least,  he  always  liked  our  animals.  Now,  looking 
back,  I  am  full  of  wonder  at  the  number  of  cats 
we  were  allowed  to  keep,  though  De  la  Pluche, 
the  butler,  and  Gray,  the  housekeeper,  waged  war 
against  them.  The  cats  used  to  come  to  us  from 
the  garden,  for  then,  as  now,  the  open  spaces  of 
Kensington  abounded  in  fauna.  My  sister  used  to 
adopt  and  christen  them  all  in  turn  by  the  names 
of  her  favorite  heroes;  she  had  Nicholas  Nicklcby, 
a  huge  gray  tabby,  and  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  and  a 
poor  little  half-starved  Barnaby  Rudge,  and  many 
others.  Their  saucers  used  to  be  placed  in  a  row 
on  the  little  terrace  at  the  back  of  my  father's 
study,  under  the  vine  where  the  sour  green  grapes 
grew — not  at  all  out  of  reach ;  and  at  the  farther 
end  of  which  was  an  empty  greenhouse  ornamented 
by  the  busts  of  my  father  as  a  boy,  and  of  a  rela- 
tion in  a  military  cloak. 

One  of  my  friends  —  she  never  lived  to  be  an 
old  woman — used  to  laugh  and  say  that  she  had 
reached  the  time  of  life  when  she  loved  to  sec 
even  the  people  her  parents  had  particularly  dis- 
liked, just  for  the  sake  of  old  times.  I  don't  know 
how  I  should  feel  if  I  were  to  meet  one  agreeable, 


MY    WITCHES     CALDRON  77 

cordial  gentleman,  who  used  to  come  on  horseback 
and  invite  us  to  all  sorts  of  dazzling  treats  and  en- 
tertainments which,  to  our  great  disappointment, 
my  father  invariably  refused,  saying,  "  No,  I  don't 
like  him  ;  I  don't  want  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
him."  The  wretched  man  fully  justified  these  ob- 
jections by  getting  himself  transported  long  after 
for  a  protracted  course  of  peculiarly  deliberate  and 
cold-blooded  fraud.  On  one  occasion,  a  friend  told 
me,  he  was  talking  to  my  father,  and  mentioning 
some  one  in  good  repute  at  the  time,  and  my  fa- 
ther incidentally  spoke  as  if  he  knew  of  a  murder 
that  person  had  committed,  "  You  know  it,  then  !" 
said  the  other  man.  "  Who  could  have  told  you?" 
My  father  had  never  been  told,  but  he  had  known 
it  all  along,  he  said  ;  and,  indeed,  he  sometimes 
spoke  of  this  curious  feeling  he  had  about  people 
at  times,  as  if  uncomfortable  facts  in  their  past  his- 
tory were  actually  revealed  to  him.  At  the  same 
time  I  do  not  think  anybody  had  a  greater  enjoy- 
ment than  he  in  other  people's  goodness  and  well- 
doing;  he  used  to  be  proud  of  a  boy's  prizes  at 
school,  he  used  to  be  proud  of  a  woman's  sweet 
voice  or  of  her  success  in  housekeeping.  He  had 
a  friend  in  the  V'ictoria  Road  hard  by  whose  de- 
lightful household  w^ays  he  used  to  describe,  and  I 
can  still  hear  the  lady  he  called  "  Jingleby  "  war- 
bling "  O  du  schone  Miillerin,"  to  his  great  delight. 


78         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

Any  generous  thing  or  word  seemed  like  something 
happening  to  himself.  I  can  remember,  when  David 
Copperjicld  came  out,  hearing  him  saying,  in  his  em- 
phatic way,  to  my  grandmother  that  "  little  Em'ly's 
letter  to  old  Peggotty  was  a  masterpiece."  I  won- 
dered to  hear  him  at  the  time,  for  that  was  not  at 
all  the  part  I  cared  for  most,  nor,  indeed,  could  I 
imagine  how  little  Em'ly  ever  was  so  stupid  as  to 
run  away  from  Peggotty 's  enchanted  house-boat. 
But  we  each  and  all  enjoyed  in  turn  our  share  of 
those  thin  green  books  full  of  delicious  things,  and 
how  glad  we  were  when  they  came  to  our  hands  at 
last,  after  our  elders  and  our  governess  and  our  but- 
ler had  all  read  them  in  turn. 

It  is  curious  to  me  now  to  remember,  considering 
how  little  we  met  and  what  a  long  way  off  they 
lived,  what  an  important  part  the  Dickens  house- 
hold played  in  our  childhood.  But  the  Dickens 
books  were  as  much  a  part  of  our  home  as  our  own 
father's. 

Certainly  the  Dickens  children's  parties  were 
shining  facts  in  our  early  London  days  —  nothing 
came  in  the  least  near  them.  There  were  other 
parties — and  they  were  very  nice — but  nothing  to 
compare  to  these ;  not  nearly  so  light,  not  nearly 
so  shining,  not  nearly  so  going  round  and  round. 
Perhaps — so  dear  K.  P.  suggests — it  was  not  all  as 
brilliantly  wonderful  as  I  imagined  it ;  but  most  as- 


MY   WITCHES     CALDRON  79 

suredly  the  spirit  of  mirth  and  kindly  jollity  was 
a  reality  to  every  one  present,  and  the  master  of 
the  house  had  that  wondrous  fairy  gift  of  leader- 
ship. I  know  not  what  to  call  that  power  by  which 
he  inspired  every  one  with  spirit  and  interest.  One 
special  party  I  remember,  which  seemed  to  me  to 
go  on  for  years  with  its  kind,  gay  hospitality,  its 
music,  its  streams  of  children  passing  and  repass- 
ing. We  were  a  little  shy  coming  in  alone  in  all 
the  consciousness  of  new  shoes  and  ribbons,  but 
Mrs.  Dickens  called  us  to  sit  beside  her  till  the 
long  sweeping  dance  was  over,  and  talked  to  us  as 
if  we  were  grown  up,  which  is  always  flattering  to 
little  girls.  Then  Miss  Hogarth  found  us  partners, 
and  wc,  too,  formed  part  of  the  throng.  I  remem- 
ber watching  the  white  satin  shoes  and  long  flow- 
ing white  sashes  of  the  little  Dickens  girls,  who  were 
just  about  our  own  age,  but  how  much  more  grace- 
ful and  beautifully  dressed  !  Our  sashes  were  bright 
plaids  of  red  and  blue  (tributes  from  one  of  our 
father's  Scotch  admirers.  Is  it  ungrateful  to  con- 
fess now  after  all  these  years  that  we  could  not 
bear  them  ?),  our  shoes  were  only  bronze.  Shall  I 
own  to  this  passing  shadow  amid  all  that  radiance  ? 
But  when  people  are  once  dancing  they  are  all 
equal  again  and  happy. 

Somehow  after  the  music  we  all  floated  into  a  long 
supper-room,  and  I  found  myself  sitting  near  the 


8o        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

head  of  the  table  by  Mr.  Dickens,  with  another  httle 
girl  much  younger  than  myself;  she  wore  a  necklace 
and  pretty  little  sausage  curls  all  round  her  head. 
Mr.  Dickens  was  very  kind  to  the  little  girl,  and 
presently  I  heard  him  persuading  her  to  sing,  and 
he  put  his  arm  round  her  to  encourage  her ;  and 
then,  wonderful  to  say,  the  little  girl  stood  up  (she 
was  little  Miss  Hullah)  and  began  very  shyly,  trem- 
bling and  blushing  at  first,  but  as  she  blushed  and 
trembled  she  sang  more  and  more  sweetly ;  and  then 
all  the  ji'uncsse  dorce,  consisting  of  the  little  Dickens 
boys  and  their  friends,  ranged  along  the  supper-table, 
clapped  and  clapped,  and  Mr.  Dickens  clapped  too, 
smiling  and  applauding  her.  And  then  he  made  a 
little  speech,  with  one  hand  on  the  table  ;  I  think 
it  was  thanking  \.\\e  jcuncsse  dorce  for  their  applause, 
and  they  again  clapped  and  laughed — but  here  my 
memory  fails  me,  and  everything  grows  very  vague 
and  like  a  dream. 

Only  this  much  I  do  remember  very  clearly,  that 
we  had  danced  and  supped  and  danced  again,  and 
that  we  were  all  standing  in  a  hall  lighted  and  hung 
with  bunches  of  Christmas  green,  and,  as  I  have 
said,  everything  seemed  altogether  magnificent  and 
important,  more  magnificent  and  important  every 
minute,  for  as  the  evening  went  on  more  and  more 
people  kept  arriving.  The  hall  was  crowded,  and 
the  broad  staircase  was  lined  with  little    boys — 


MY   WITCHES     CALDRON  8 1 

thousands  of  little  boys — whose  heads  and  legs  and 
arms  were  waving  about  together.  They  were 
making  a  great  noise,  and  talking  and  shouting, 
and  the  eldest  son  of  the  house  seemed  to  be  mar- 
shalling them.  Presently  their  noise  became  a 
cheer,  and  then  another,  and  we  looked  up  and 
saw  that  our  own  father  had  come  to  fetch  us,  and 
that  his  white  head  was  there  above  the  others  ; 
then  came  a  third  final  ringing  cheer,  and  some  one 
went  up  to  him — it  was  Mr.  Dickens  himself — who 
laughed  and  said  quickly,  "  That  is  for  you  !"  and 
my  father  looked  up  surprised,  pleased,  touched, 
settled  his  spectacles,  and  nodded  gravely  to  the 
little  boys. 


IN    KENSINGTON 


VI 


Ours  was  more  or  less  a  bachelor's  establishment, 
and  the  arrangements  of  the  house  varied  between 
a  certain  fastidiousness  and  the  roughest  simplicity. 
We  had  shabby  table-cloths,  alternating  with  some 
of  my  grandmother's  fine  linen;  we  had  old  Derby 
china  for  our  dessert  of  dried  figs  and  dry  biscuits, 
and  a  silver  Flaxman  teapot  (which  always  poured 
oblations  of  tea  upon  the  cloth)  for  breakfast,  also 
three  cracked  cups  and  saucers  of  unequal  patterns 
and  sizes.  One  morning,  Jeames  de  la  Pluche  (so 
my  father's  servant  and  factotum  chose  to  call  him- 
self when  he  wrote  to  the  papers)  brought  in  a 
hamper  which  had  just  arrived.  W  hen  it  was  un- 
packed we  found,  to  our  great  satisfaction,  that  it 
contained  a  lovely  breakfast  array:  A  china  bowl 
for  my  father's  tea,  ornamented  with  his  initials  in 
gold  amid  a  trellis  of  roses;  beautiful  cups  for  the 
young  ladies,  lovely  gilt  milk-jugs,  and  a  copy  of 
verses,  not  written,  but  put  together  out  of  printed 
letters  from  the  Times.     I  quote  it  from  memory: 

"Of  esteem  as  a  token — 
Fate  preserve  it  unbroken — 


86         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

A  friend  sends  this  tea-dish  of  porcelain  rare, 

And  with  truth  and  sincerity 

Wishes  health  and  prosperity 

To  the  famed  M.  A.  Titmarsh  of    Vanity  Fair." 

We  could  not  imagine  who  the  friend  was  from 
whom  the  opportune  present  had  come.  For  many 
breakfasts  we  speculated  and  wondered,  guessing 
one  person  and  another  in  turn,  while  we  sat  at  our 
now  elegant  board,  of  which  Dr.  Oliver  Holmes  him- 
self might  have  approved.  Years  afterwards,  when 
De  la  Pluche  was  taking  leave  of  my  father  and  sail- 
ing for  Australia,  where  he  obtained  a  responsible 
position,  he  said,  reproachfully :  "I  sent  you  the 
breakfast  things;  you  guessed  a  great  many  people, 
but  you  never  guessed  they  came  from  me." 

De  la  Pluche  was  devoted  to  my  father,  and  next 
to  him  he  seemed  the  most  important  member  of 
the  household.  He  was  more  than  devoted.  We 
used  to  think  he  was  a  sorcerer.  He  used  to  guess 
at  my  father's  thoughts,  plan  for  him,  work  for 
him,  always  knew  beforehand  what  he  would  like 
far  better  than  we  ever  did.  I  remember  that  we 
almost  cried  on  one  occasion,  thinking  that  our 
father  would  ultimately  prefer  him  to  us.  He  used 
to  write  to  the  papers  and  sign  his  letters,  "  Jeames 
de  la  Pluche,  13  Young  Street."  ''  Like  to  see  my 
last,  miss?"  he  used  to  say,  as  he  put  down  a  paper 
on  the  school-room  table.    He  was  a  very  good  and 


IN    KENSINGTON  87 

clever  man,  though  a  stern  ruler.  My  father  had  a 
real  friendship  and  regard  for  him,  and  few  of  his 
friends  ever  deserved  it  more.  He  lived  alone 
down-stairs,  where  he  was  treated  with  great  defer- 
ence, and  had  his  meals  served  separately,  I  believe. 
He  always  called  my  father  "  the  Governor."  He 
was  a  little  man,  and  was  very  like  Holbein's  pict- 
ure of  Sir  Thomas  More  in  looks.  I  remember  on 
one  occasion  coming  away  from  some  lecture  or 
entertainment.  As  we  got  out  into  the  street  it 
was  raining.  "  It  has  turned  cold,"  said  my  father, 
who  was  already  beginning  to  be  ill.  At  that  mo- 
ment a  voice  behind  him  said,  "Coat,  sir?  Brought 
it  down  ;"  and  there  was  De  la  Pluche,  who  had 
brought  his  coat  all  the  way  from  Kensington,  help- 
ing him  on  with  it.  My  father  thanked  him,  and 
then  mechanically  felt  in  the  pocket  for  a  possible 
cigar-case.  "  Cigar?  Here,"  says  De  la  Pluche,  pop- 
ping one  into  my  father's  mouth,  and  producing  a 
match  ready  lighted. 

I  sometimes  hear  from  my  old  friend,  and  I  hope 
he  may  not  be  pained  by  reading  of  these  childish 
jealousies  long  past. 

When  we  were  children  attending  our  classes  we 
used  to  be  encouraged  to  study  large  sheets  with 
colored  designs,  representing  the  solar  system  and 
its  various  intricacies.  One  can  understand  the 
pictures  in  the  book  while  one  is  looking  at  them, 


88         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

but  it  is  a  very  different  thing  from  looking  at  pict- 
ures to  try  to  understand  the  reality  as  it  exists 
outside  the  print,  and  to  stand  on  one's  own  door- 
step trying  to  realize  that  the  earth  is  turning  one 
way  and  the  moon  corkscrewing  round  it,  and  the 
planets  dancing  their  mighty  course,  and  the  fixed 
stars  disappearing  all  the  time  behind  the  opposite 
roof,  to  say  nothing  of  a  possibility  that  one's  feet 
are  up  in  the  air  and  one's  head  hanging  down  below, 
without  any  feeling  of  inconvenience,  except,  per- 
haps, a  certain  bewilderment  and  confusion  on  most 
subjects,  which  may,  however,  be  peculiar  to  myself. 
And  so,  looking  back  at  one's  own  life,  it  is  difficult 
to  fit  all  the  events  and  chronologies  quite  accu- 
rately into  their  places.  If  one  tries  to  realize  too 
much  at  once,  the  impression  is  apt  to  grow  chaotic 
and  unmeaning  in  its  complexity ;  you  can't  get 
the  proportions  of  events;  and  perhaps,  indeed, 
one  of  the  compensating  constituents  of  all  our 
various  existences  consists  in  that  disproportion 
which  passing  impressions  happily  take  for  us,  arid 
which  they  often  retain  notwithstanding  the  expe- 
riences of  years. 

That  little  picture  of  Bewick's  in  which  a 
falling  leaf  conceals  the  sky,  the  road,  the  passing 
gig  and  its  occupants,  has  always  seemed  to  mc  to 
contain  the  secret  of  a  philosophy  which  makes  ex- 
istence itself  more  possible  than  it  would  be  if  infin- 


IN    KENSINGTON  89 

ity  held  its  proportional  place  in  our  finite  expe- 
rience. 

Our  London  home  was  a  happy,  but  a  very  quiet 
home.  One  day  my  father  said  that  he  had  been 
surprised  to  hear  from  his  friend  Sir  Henry  Davi- 
son how  seriously  our  house  struck  people,  com- 
pared to  other  houses:  "But  I  think  we  are  very 
happy  as  we  are,"  said  he,  and  so,  indeed,  we  were. 
We  lived  chiefly  with  him  and  with  quite  little  chil- 
dren, or  with  our  grandparents  when  they  came  over 
to  visit  us.  There  was  certainly  a  want  of  initiation  ; 
in  our  house  there  was  no  one  to  suggest  all  sorts 
of  delightful  possibilities,  which,  as  we  grew  up, 
might  have  been  made  more  of;  but  looking  back 
I  chiefly  regret  it  in  so  far  as  I  think  he  might  have 
been  happier  if  we  had  brought  a  little  more  action 
and  sunshine  into  daily  life,  and  taken  a  little  more 
on  our  own  responsibility  instead  of  making  our- 
selves into  his  shadows. 

When  my  father  had  done  his  day's  work  he 
liked  a  change  of  scene  and  thought.  I  think  he 
was  always  glad  to  leave  the  ink-blots  for  his  be- 
loved dabs  of  paint.  Sometimes  he  used  to  drive 
into  town  on  the  top  of  an  omnibus,  sometimes  in  a 
brougham  ;  very  often  he  used  to  take  us  with  him 
in  hansoms  (which  we  much  preferred)  on  long  ex- 
peditions to  Hampstead,  to  Richmond,  to  Green- 
wich, or  to  studios  in  distant  quarters  of  the  town. 


90         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

There  was  Mr.  David  Roberts's  studio;  his  welcome 
was  certain,  and  his  sketch-books  were  an  unfail- 
ing delight  to  turn  over ;  indeed,  the  drawings  were 
so  accurate,  delicate,  and  suggestive  that  they  used 
to  make  one  almost  giddy  to  look  at.  Once  or 
twice  we  went  to  Mr.  Cattermole's,  who  had  a  studio 
among  the  Hampstead  hills,  hidden  among  ancient 
walls  and  ivy-trees.  Mr.  Du  Maurier  was  not  yet 
living  there,  or  I  am  sure  we  should  have  driven 
farther  up  the  hill.  As  life  goes  on  one  grudges 
that  time  and  chance  alone  should  have  separated 
people  who  would  have  been  so  happy  with  each 
other.  Sometimes  we  used  to  go  to  Sir  Edwin 
Landseer's  beautiful  villa  in  St.  John's  Wood,  and 
enjoy  his  delightful  company.  Among  his  many 
stories,  as  he  stood  painting  at  his  huge  canvases, 
I  remember  his  once  telling  us  an  anecdote  of  one 
of  his  dogs.  He  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  it  out 
every  day  after  his  work  was  over.  The  dog  used 
to  wait  patiently  all  day  long  while  Sir  Edwin  was 
painting,  but  he  used  to  come  and  lie  down  at  his 
feet  and  look  up  in  his  face  towards  five  o'clock; 
and  on  one  occasion,  finding  his  hints  disregarded, 
he  trotted  into  the  hall  and  came  back  with  the 
painter's  hat,  which  he  laid  on  the  floor  before  him. 
Then  we  always  enjoyed  going  on  to  the  house 
of  a  neighbor  of  Sir  Edwin's,  Mr.  Charles  Leslie, 
who  dwelt  somewhere  in  that  locality  with  a  de- 


IN    KENSINGTON  9 1 

Hghtful  household.  To  say  notliing  of  the  act- 
ual members  of  that  painter's  home,  there  were 
others  also  belonging  to  it  who  were  certainly  all 
but  alive.  I  can  still  see  my  father  standing  in 
the  South  Kensington  Museum,  sympathetic  and 
laughing  before  the  picture  of  Sancho  Panza,  in 
which  he  sits  with  his  finger  to  his  nose,  with  that 
look  of  portentous  wisdom  and  absurdity.  As  for 
the  charming  duchess,  whose  portrait  is  also  to  be 
seen,  she,  or  her  prototypes,  must  surely  have  dwelt 
in  the  painter's  own  home.  Mr.  Dickens  used  to 
be  at  the  Leslies'  sometimes,  and  though  I  cannot 
quite  account  for  it,  I  have  a  general  impression 
of  fireworks  perpetually  going  off  just  outside  their 
windows. 

One  day  that  we  had  come  home  from  one  of 
these  expeditions  in  a  big  blue  flly,  with  a  bony 
horse — it  was  a  bright  blue  fly,  with  a  drab  inside 
to  it,  and  an  old  white  coachman  on  the  box — my 
father,  after  a  few  words  of  consultation  with  the 
coachman,  drove  off  again,  and  shortly  afterwards 
returning  on  foot,  told  us  that  he  had  just  bought 
the  whole  concern,  brougham  and  horse  and  har- 
ness, and  that  he  had  sent  Jackson  (our  driver  had 
now  become  Jackson)  to  be  measured  for  a  great- 
coat. So  henceforward  we  came  and  went  about  in 
our  own  private  carriage,  which,  however,  never 
lost  its  original  name  of  "the  fly,"  although  Jack- 


92        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

son's  buttons  shone  resplendent  with  the  Thack- 
eray crest,  and  the  horse,  too,  seemed  brushed  up 
and  promoted  to  be  private, 

I  remember,  or  I  think  I  remember,  driving  in 
this  vehicle  to  Mr.  Frank  Stone's  studio  in  Tavi- 
stock Square,  and  how  he  and  my  father  began 
laughing  and  talking  about  early  days.  "  Do  you 
remember  that  portrait  I  began  to  paint  of  you 
over  the  lady  with  the  guitar?"  Mr.  Stone  said,  and 
he  added  that  he  had  the  picture  still,  and,  go- 
ing into  some  deep  cupboard,  he  brought  out  a 
cheerful,  florid  picture  of  my  father  as  I  for  one  had 
never  seen  him,  with  thick  black  hair  and  a  young, 
ruddy  face.  We  brought  it  away  w4th  us,  and  I 
have  it  now,  and  the  lady's  red  dress  still  appears  in 
the  background.  It  is  perhaps  fortunate  that  peo- 
ple, as  a  rule,  are  well  and  happy,  and  at  their  best, 
when  their  portraits  are  painted.  If  one  looks  down 
the  Academy  list  year  by  year,  one  sees  that  the 
pictures  represent  gentlemen  who  have  just  been 
made  bishops,  or  speakers,  or  governors  -  general ; 
or  ladies  who  are  brides  in  their  lovely  new  clothes 
and  jewels.  Sad  folks  hide  their  heads,  sick  folks 
turn  them  away  and  are  not  fit  subjects  for  the 
painter's  art ;  and  yet,  as  I  write,  I  am  also  con- 
scious that  facts  contradict  mc,  and  that  there  has 
been  a  fine  run  of  late  upon  nurses  and  death-bed 
scenes  in  cfcneral. 


IN    KENSINGTON  93 

The  happy  hour  had  not  yet  come  for  us  when 
Mr,  Watts  came  to  Hve  in  Kenshigton  at  Little 
Holland  House,  and  built  his  studios  there.  This 
was  in  later  times,  and  after  we  had  just  passed 
beyond  the  great  pinafore  age,  which  sets  such  a 
stamp  upon  after-life, and  to  which  my  recollections 
seem  chiefly  to  revert. 

He  always  said  that  he  should  like  to  paint  a 
picture  of  my  father,  but  the  day  for  the  sitting^ 
alas,  never  came.  And  yet  I  can  imagine  what  that 
picture  might  have  been — a  portrait,  such  as  some 
portraits,  with  that  mysterious  reality  in  them,  that 
present,  which  is  quite  apart  from  time  and  dates. 

I  am  sure  there  was  no  one  among  all  his  friends 
whose  society  my  father  enjoyed  more  than  he  did 
that  of  John  Leech,  whom  he  first  remembered,  so 
he  has  often  told  us  wnth  a  smile,  a  small  boy  at  the 
Charterhouse,  in  a  little  blue  buttoned-up  suit,  set 
up  on  a  form  and  made  to  sing  "  Home,  Sweet 
Home  "  to  the  others  crowding  round  about.  Mr. 
Leech  was  anything  but  a  small  boy  when  I  remem- 
ber him  in  the  old  Young  Street  dining-room,  where 
De  la  Pluche  was  laying  the  cloth  while  Mr.  Leech 
and  my  father  sat  talking  b}^  the  fire.  He  was  very 
handsome  and  tall,  and  kind  and  shy,  and  he  spoke 
in  a  husky,  melodious  voice ;  we  admired  him  very 
much  ;  he  was  always  beautifully  dressed,  and  we 
used  to  see  him  come  riding  up  to  the  door  on  nice 


94        CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

shining  horses ;  and  he  generally  came  to  invite  us 
all  to  something  delightful,  to  go  there  or  to  dine 
with  him  and  his  wife  at  Richmond  or  elsewhere. 
My  father  liked  to  take  us  about  wath  him,  and  I 
am  surprised,  as  I  think  of  it,  at  the  great  good-nat- 
ure of  his  friends,  who  used  so  constantly  to  include 
two  inconvenient  little  girls  in  the  various  invita- 
tions they  sent  him.  We  used  to  be  asked  early, 
and  to  arrive  at  all  sorts  of  unusual  times.  We  used 
to  lunch  with  our  hosts  and  spend  long  afternoons, 
and  then  about  dinner-time  our  father  would  come 
in,  and  sit  smoking  after  dinner  while  we  waited 
with  patient  ladies  up-stairs.  Mrs.  Brookficld  used 
to  live  in  Portman  Street  in  those  days,  and  thither 
we  used  to  go  very  frequently,  and  to  Mrs.  Proc- 
ter's, as  well  as  to  various  relations'  houses,  Indian 
cousins  of  my  father's  coming  to  town  for  a  sea- 
son with  their  colonels  and  their  families.  Time 
after  time  we  used  to  go  to  the  Leeches,  who  lived 
in  Brunswick  Square.  We  used  to  play  with  the 
baby,  we  used  to  turn  over  endless  books  of  pict- 
ures, and  perhaps  go  out  for  a  walk  with  kind  Mrs. 
Leech,  and  sometimes  (but  this  happened  very 
rarely)  we  used  to  be  taken  up  to  the  room  where 
John  Leech  himself  sat  at  his  drawing-table  under 
the  square  of  silver  paper  which  softened  the  light 
as  it  fell  upon  his  blocks.  There  was  his  back  as  he 
h)ent  over  his  work,  there  were  the  tables  loaded 


IN    KENSINGTON  95 

with  picture-books  and  drawing-blocks,  huge  blocks, 
four  times  the  size  of  any  at  home,  ready  for  next 
week's  Punch ;  but  our  entrance  disturbed  him  (we 
instinctively  felt  how  much),  and  we  used  to  hurry 
quickly  back  to  the  drawing-books  down-stairs,  and 
go  on  turning  over  the  pencil  sketches.  I  have  some 
of  them  now,  those  drawings  so  roughly  indicated, 
at  first  so  vague,  and  then  by  degrees  worked  upon 
and  altered  and  modelled  and  forced  into  their  life 
as  it  were,  obliged  to  laugh,  charmed  into  kindly 
wit ;  as  I  look  at  them  now,  I  still  recognize  the 
aspect  of  those  by-gone  days  and  places,  and  I  can- 
not help  thinking  how  much  more  interesting  to 
remember  are  some  of  the  shabby  homes  in  which 
work  and  beauty  and  fun  are  made,  than  those  more 
luxurious  and  elaborate,  which  dazzle  us  so  much 
more  at  the  time,  where  everything  one  saw  was 
only  bought.  But,  after  all,  the  whole  secret  of  life 
is  made  up  of  the  things  one  makes,  and  those  one 
steals,  and  those  one  pays  for. 

IMy  own  children  turn  over  Leech's  drawings  now, 
as  happily  as  we  ourselves  used  to  do,  and  it  seems 
to  me  sometimes  as  if  they  also  are  at  play  among 
our  own  old  fancies  and  in  our  old  haunts.  There 
are  the  rooms  again.  There  is  Mrs.  Leech's  old 
piano  like  an  organ  standing  bolt  upright  against 
the  wall ;  there  are  the  brown-holland  covers  on  the 
chairs ;  there  is  the  domestic  lamp,  looking  (as  the 


96         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

lamps  of  one's  youth  used  to  look)  tall  and  disman- 
tled like  some  gaunt  light-house  erected  upon  bare 
mahogany  rocks.  Besides  these  things,  I  remember 
with  real  affection  a  lovely  little  miniature  portrait 
of  Mrs.  Leech,  which  used  to  hang  upon  the  wall, 
and  which  was  done  at  the  time  of  her  marriage. 
It  was  indeed  the  sweetest  little  picture  ;  and  when 
I  saw  her  one  little  granddaughter,  Dorothy  Gil- 
lett,  this  old  favorite  picture  of  my  childhood  came 
into  my  mind.  It  may  be  hallucination,  but,  al- 
though the  houses  were  so  ugly  in  those  days,  I 
still  think  the  people  in  them  looked  almost  nicer 
then  than  they  do  now. 

Madame  Elise  was  the  great  oracle  of  the  'Fif- 
ties, and  she  used  to  turn  out  floating,  dignified, 
squashy  beings  with  close  pearly  head-dresses  and 
bonnets,  and  sloping,  spreading  draperies.  They 
are  all  to  be  seen  in  Mr.  Leech's  pictures  still,  and 
they  may  be  about  to  come  back  to  life,  crinolines 
and  all,  for  anything  I  know  to  the  contrary.  But 
I  hope  not ;  I  think  this  present  generation  of 
women  is  a  happier  one  than  that  one  was.  The 
characters  of  the  people  I  remember  were  certainly 
different  from  the  characters  of  their  daughters  of 
the  present,  disporting  themselves  in  the  golden 
Du  ]\Iaurier  age  of  liberty  and  out-door  life.  Mr. 
Leech  once  drew  our  own  green  curtains  for  us  in 
a  little  picture  of  two  girls  asking  a  child  what  it 


IN    KENSINGTON  97 

had  for  dinner.  The  child  says,  "  Something  that 
begins  with  a  S  "  ;  and  when  asked  what  that  might 
be,  explains  that  it  was  cold  beef. 

A  certain  number  of  writers  and  designers  for 
Punch  used  to  dine  at  Mr.  Leech's,  coming  in  with 
my  father  towards  the  close  of  the  day.  I  remem- 
ber Mr.  Tenniel  there,  and  Mr.  Percival  Leigh,  and 
Mr.  Shirley  Brooks,  and  Millais  in  later  days,  and 
an  eminent  member  of  a  different  profession,  the 
present  Dean  of  Rochester.  Sometimes,  instead 
of  dining  in  Brunswick  Square  or  at  the  house  in 
Kensington  (to  which  they  afterwards  removed), 
we  used  to  be  taken  all  away  to  Richmond,  to  en- 
joy happy  hours  upon  the  terrace,  and  the  light  of 
setting  suns. 

My  father  was  pleased  when  some  dozen  years 
later  the  Leeches  came  to  Kensington,  and  he  was 
greatly  interested  in  their  pretty  old  house.  Mr. 
Leech  was  pleased  too ;  and  at  first  he  used  to 
describe  w'ith  resigned  humor  what,  alas,  became 
slow  torture  in  the  end  to  his  strained  nerves  — 
the  different  noises  as  they  succeeded  each  other 
in  what  he  had  expected  to  find  a  quiet  suburb 
of  London  :  the  milkman,  the  carrier,  the  industri- 
ous carpenter,  all  following  in  rotation  one  by  one, 
from  the  very  earliest  morning.  But  his  nerves 
were  altogether  overstrung.  I  remember  hearing 
7 


gS         CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

him  once,  in  far,  far  back  times,  tell  a  little  story, 
scarcely  perhaps  worth  retelling.  He  was  looking 
altogether  ill  and  upset,  and  he  told  us  that  he 
had  hardly  recovered  from  a  little  shock  the  night 
before.  Coming  home  late,  and  as  he  went  up- 
stairs, he  had  been  annoyed  by  hearing  the  howl- 
ing of  a  dog  in  a  garden  at  the  back  of  the  house. 
He  did  not  know  that  one  of  his  young  sisters 
had  come  to  see  his  wife  that  evening,  had  been 
persuaded  to  stay  for  the  night,  and  put  to  sleep 
in  the  very  room  into  which  he  now  turned,  throw- 
ing up  the  window  to  see  where  the  noise  came 
from.  The  moon  was  shining,  and  happening  to 
look  round  he  was  quite  overcome,  seeing  a  fig- 
ure lying  motionless  upon  the  bed,  while  the  light 
poured  coldly  upon  a  white  marble  profile. 

I  was  going  along  the  Kensington  Road  towards 
Palace  Green  one  fine  morning,  when  I  met  my  fa- 
ther carefully  carrying  before  him  two  blue  Dutch 
china  pots,  which  he  had  just  surreptitiously  taken 
away  out  of  his  own  study.  ''  I  am  going  to  see 
if  they  won't  stand  upon  Leech's  dining-room 
chimney-piece,"  he  said.  I  followed  him,  hoping, 
I  am  afraid,  that  they  would  not  stand  there,  for 
we  were  well  used  to  lament  the  accustomed  disap- 
pearance of  his  pretty  ornaments  and  china  dishes. 
People  may  have  stared  to  see  him  carrying  his 
china,   but  that    I  do   not   now  remember  —  only 


IN    KENSINGTON  99 

this,  that  he  was  amused  and  interested,  and  that 
we  found  the  iron  gates  open  to  the  court  in  front, 
and  the  doors  of  the  Leeches'  house  all  wide  open, 
though  the  house  itself  was  empty  and  the  family 
had  not  yet  arrived.  Workmen  were  coming  and 
going,  busy  hammering  carpets  and  making  ar- 
rangements. We  crossed  the  hall,  and  then  my 
father  led  the  way  into  the  pretty,  old  dining-room, 
with  its  new  Turkey  carpet  and  its  tall  windows 
looking  to  the  gardens  at  the  back.  "  I  knew  they 
would  stand  there,"  said  he,  putting  up  the  two 
blue  pots  on  the  high  narrow  ledge ;  and  there  to 
my  mind  they  will  ever  stand. 

It  was  in  the  Quarterly  Review  that  my  father 
wrote  of  Leech's  pictures.  "  While  we  live  we  must 
laugh,"  he  says. 

Do  we  laugh  enough?  Our  fathers  laughed  bet- 
ter than  we  do.  Is  it  that  we  have  overeaten  of 
the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  ?  I  cannot  say. 
The  art  of  design,  as  practised  by  the  successors 
of  John  Leech  who  have  followed  in  his  steps, 
still  holds  its  own  delightful  sway  ;  but  the  kin- 
dred arts  of  action,  of  oratory,  of  literature,  have, 
to  some  narrow-minded  critics,  taken  most  un- 
pleasant forms  of  sincerity.  Sometimes  I  wonder 
how  the  moralist  would  write  of  us  now,  were  he 
still  among  us.  I  don't  know  how  the  present  will 
strike  the  new  generation,  when  it  has  grown  up 


lOO      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

to  look  back  in  turn  upon  this  somewhat  compli- 
cated phase  of  civilization.  Sheep's  clothing  is  out 
of  date,  and  wolf- skins  all  the  fashion  now;  but 
they  are  imitation  wolf-skins.  The  would-be  Lion 
affects  the  Donkey's  ears ;  the  Pharisee  is  anxious 
to  be  seen  in  the  Publican's  society  for  the  good 
impression  it  makes  upon  his  constituency.  It  is 
all  very  perplexing,  and  not  very  edifying  to  spec- 
ulate on.  And  then  I  feel  that  any  day,  while  one 
is  fumbling  and  probing  and  dissecting  and  split- 
ting hairs,  some  genius  such  as  John  Leech  silently 
appears  and  touches  commonplace  things,  and  lo ! 
here  is  a  new  light  upon  earth,  a  new  happiness ; 
here  is  another  smile  in  the  land.  "  Can  we  have 
too  much  of  truth  and  fun  and  beauty  and  kind- 
ness?" said  John  Leech's  Friend. 


TO   WEIMAR  AND   BACK 


VII 


I  SUPPOSE  the  outer  circuit  of  my  own  very  lim- 
ited wanderings  must  have  been  reached  at  the  age 
of  thirteen  or  thereabouts,  when  my  father  took  me 
and  my  Httle  sister  for  the  grand  tour  of  Europe. 
We  had,  of  course,  Hved  in  Paris,  and  spent  our 
summers  in  quiet  sunny  country  places  abroad  with 
our  grandparents,  but  this  was  to  be  something 
different  from  anything  we  had  ever  known  before 
at  St.  Germains  or  Montmorenci  among  the  don- 
keys. Switzerland  and  Venice  and  Vienna,  Ger- 
many and  the  Rhine !  Our  young  souls  thrilled 
with  expectation.  And  yet  those  early  feasts  of 
life  are  not  unlike  the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and 
fishes :  the  twelve  basketfuls  that  remain  in  after- 
years  are  certainly  even  more  precious  than  the 
feast  itself. 

\Vc  started  one  sleety  summer  morning.  IVIy 
father  was  pleased  to  be  off  and  we  were  enchanted. 
He  had  bought  a  gray  wide-awake  hat  for  the  jour- 
ney, and  he  had  a  new  sketch-book  in  his  pocket, 
besides  two  smaller  ones  for  us,  which  he  produced 
as  the  steamer  was  starting.     We  sailed  from  Lon- 


I04      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

don  Bridge,  and  the  decks  were  all  wet  and  slippery 
as  we  came  on  board.  We  were  scatter-brained 
little  girls,  although  we  looked  demure  enough  in 
our  mushroom  hats  and  waterproofs.  We  had  also 
prepared  a  travelling  trousseau,  which  consisted  of 
miscellaneous  articles  belonging  to  the  fancy-goods 
department  of  things  in  general,  rather  than  to  the 
usual  outfit  of  an  English  gentleman's  family.  I 
was  not  without  some  dififidencc  about  my  luggage. 
I  remember  a  draught-board,  a  large  wooden  work- 
box,  a  good  many  books,  paint-boxes,  and  other 
odds  and  ends ;  but  I  felt  that  whatever  else  might 
be  deficient,  our  nezv  bonnets  would  bring  us  tri- 
umphantly out  of  every  crisis.  They  were  alike, 
but  with  a  difference  of  blue  and  pink  wreaths  of 
acacia,  and  brilliant  in  ribbons  to  match,  at  a  time 
when  people  affected  less  dazzling  colors  than  they 
do  now.  Of  course,  these  treasures  were  not  for 
the  Channel  and  its  mischances ;  they  were  care- 
fully packed  away  and  guarded  by  the  draught- 
boards and  work-boxes  and  the  other  contents  of 
our  trunk ;  and  I  may  as  well  conclude  the  episode 
at  once,  for  it  is  not  quite  Avithout  bearing  upon 
what  I  am  trying  to  recall.  Alas  for  human  ex- 
pectations! When  the  happy  moment  came  at  last, 
and  we  had  reached  foreign  parts,  and  issued  out  of 
the  hotel  dressed  and  wreathed  and  triumphantly 
splendid,  my   father  said  :  "  My  dear  children,  go 


TO    WEIMAR   AND    BACK  105 

back  and  put  those  bonnets  away  in  your  box,  and 
don't  ever  wear  them  any  more  !  Why,  you  would 
be  mobbed  in  these  places  if  you  walked  out  alone 
with  such  ribbons  !"  How  the  sun  shone  as  he 
spoke!  how  my  heart  sank  under  the  acacia-trees! 
My  sister  was  eleven  years  old,  and  didn't  care  a 
bit ;  but  at  thirteen  and  fourteen  one's  clothes  be- 
gin to  strike  root.  I  felt  disgraced,  beheaded  of  my 
lovely  bonnet,  utterly  crushed,  and  I  turned  away 
to  hide  my  tears. 

Now,  there  is  a  passage  in  the  life  of  Charles 
Kingsley  which,  as  I  believe,  concerned  this  very 
time  and  journey;  and  I  am  amused,  as  I  remember 
the  tragedy  of  my  bonnet,  to  think  of  the  different 
sacrifices  which  men  and  women  have  to  pay  to 
popular  prejudice,  casting  their  head-gear  into  the 
flames  just  as  the  people  did  in  the  times  of  Ro- 
mola.  We  had  started  by  the  packet-boat  from 
London  Bridge,  as  I  have  said,  and  immediately  we 
came  on  board  we  had  been  kindly  greeted  by  a 
family  group  already  established  there — an  elderly 
gentleman  in  clerical  dress,  and  a  lady  sitting  with 
an  umbrella  in  the  drizzle  of  rain  and  falling  smuts 
from  the  funnel.  This  was  the  Kingsley  family, 
consisting  of  the  rector  of  Chelsea  and  his  wife  and 
his  two  sons  (Charles  Kingsley  was  the  elder  of  the 
two),  then  going  abroad  for  his  health.  It  will  now 
be  seen  that  my  recollections  concern  more  histor- 


I06      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

ical  head-dresses  than  our  unlucky  bonnets — asso- 
ciations which  William  Tell  himself  might  not  have 
disdained.  Mr.  Kingsley  and  his  brother  were  wear- 
ing brown  felt  hats  with  very  high  and  pointed 
crowns,  and  with  very  broad  brims,  of  a  different 
shape  from  my  father's  commonplace  felt.  The 
hats  worn  by  Mr.  Kingsley  and  his  brother  were 
more  like  those  well-known  brims  and  peaks 
which  have  crowned  so  many  poets'  heads  since 
then. 

It  was  a  stormy  crossing  ;  the  waves  were  curling 
unpleasantly  round  about  the  boat.  I  sat  by  Mrs. 
Kingsley,  miserable,  uncomfortable,  and  watching 
in  a  dazed  and  hypnotized  sort  of  way  the  rim  of 
Charles  Kingsley 's  wide-awake  as  it  rose  and  fell 
against  the  horrible  horizon.  He  stood  before  us, 
holding  on  to  some  ropes,  and  the  horizon  rose  and 
fell,  and  the  steamer  pitched  and  tossed,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  Time  stood  still.  But  we  reached 
those  farther  shores  at  last,  and  parted  from  our 
companions,  and  very  soon  afterwards  my  father 
told  us  with  some  amusement  of  the  adventure 
which  befell  Mr.  Charles  Kingsley  and  his  brother 
almost  as  soon  as  they  landed,  and  after  they  had 
parted  from  their  parents.  They  were  arrested  by 
the  police,  who  did  not  like  the  shape  of  their  wide- 
awakes. I  may  as  well  give  the  story  in  Mr.  Kings- 
ley's  own  words,  which  I  found  in  his  Life,  in  an  ex- 


TO    WEIMAR    AND    BACK  107 

tract  from  a  letter  written   immediately  after  the 
event  to  Mrs.  Charles  Kingsley  at  home.    He  says : 

"  Here  we  are  at  Treves,  having  been  brought  there  un- 
der arrest  with  a  gendarme  from  the  mayor  of  Gettesburg, 
and  liberated  next  morning  with  much  laughter  and  many- 
curses  from  the  police  here.  However,  we  had  the  pleasure 
of  spending  a  night  in  prison  among  fleas  and  felons,  on 
the  bare  floor.  The  barbarians  took  our  fishing-tackle  for 
Todt-instrinnoitcn,  and  our  wide-awakes  for  Italian  hats, 
and  got  it  into  their  addle-pates  that  we  were  emissaries 
of  Mazzini.  .  .  ." 

Perhaps  I  can  find  some  excuse  for  the  "ad- 
dle-pates "  when  I  remember  that  proud  and  eager 
head,  and  that  bearing  so  full  of  character  and  en- 
ergy. One  can  imagine  the  author  of  Alton  Locke 
not  finding  very  great  favor  with  foreign  mou- 
chards  and  gendarmes,  and  suggesting  indefinite 
terrors  and  suspicions  to  their  minds. 

Fortunately  for  the  lovers  of  nature,  unfortunate- 
ly for  autobiographcrs,  the  dates  of  the  years  as  they 
pass  are  not  written  up  in  big  letters  on  the  blue 
vaults  overhead,  though  the  seasons  themselves  are 
told  in  turn  by  the  clouds  and  lights,  and  by  every 
waving  tree  and  every  country  glade.  And  so, 
though  one  remembers  the  aspect  of  things,  the 
years  are  apt  to  get  a  little  shifted  at  times,  and  I 
cannot  quite  tell  whether  it  was  this  year  or  that 
one  following;  in  which  we  found  ourselves  still  in 


Io8      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

glorious  summer  weather  returning  home  from  dis- 
tant places,  and  coming  back  by  Germany  and  by 
Weimar. 

In  common  with  most  children,  the  stories  of  our 
father's  youth  always  delighted  and  fascinated  us, 
and  we  had  often  heard  him  speak  of  his  own  early 
days  at  college  and  in  Germany,  and  of  his  happy 
stay  at  Pumpernickel-Weimar,  where  he  went  to 
court  and  saw  the  great  Goethe,  and  was  in  love 
with  the  beautiful  Amalia  von  X.  And  now  coming 
to  Weimar  wc  found  ourselves  actually  alive  in  his 
past  somehow,  almost  living  it  alongside  with  him, 
just  like  Gogo  in  Mr.  Du  Maurier's  story.  I  sud- 
denly find  myself  walking  up  the  centre  of  an  emp- 
ty shady  street,  and  my  father  is  pointing  to  a  row 
of  shutters  on  the  first  floor  of  a  large  and  comfort- 
able-looking house.  "  That  is  where  Frau  von  X. 
used  to  live,"  he  said.  "  How  kind  she  was  to  us, 
and  what  a  pretty  girl  Amalia  was !"  And  then,  a 
little  farther  on,  we  passed  the  house  in  the  sunshine 
of  ?),  plaz  in  which  he  told  us  he  himself  had  lodged 
with  a  friend ;  and  then  we  came  to  the  palace,  with 
the  soldiers  and  sentries  looking  like  toys  wound  up 
from  the  Burlington  Arcade,  and  going  backward 
and  forward  with  their  spikes  in  front  of  their  own 
striped  boxes;  and  we  saw  the  acacia-trees  with 
their  cropped  heads,  and  the  iron  gates ;  and  we 
went  across  the  court-yard  into  the  palace  and  were 


TO    WEIMAR   AND    BACK  1 09 

shown  the  ball  -  room  and  the  smaller  saloons,  and 
we  stood  on  the  shining  floors  and  beheld  the  clas- 
sic spot  where  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  all  his 
life,  I  believe,  my  father  had  invited  the  lovely  Ama- 
lia  to  waltz.  And  then,  coming  away  all  absorbed 
and  delighted  with  our  experiences  in  living  back- 
ward, my  father  suddenly  said,  "  I  wonder  if  old 
Weissenborne  is  still  alive?  He  used  to  teach  me 
German,"  And  lo!  as  he  spoke,  a  tall,  thin  old  man, 
in  a  broad-brimmed  straw  hat,  with  a  beautiful  Pom- 
eranian poodle  running  before  him,  came  stalking 
along  with  a  newspaper  under  his  arm.  "Good 
gracious,  that  looks  like  —  yes,  that  is  Dr.  Weissen- 
borne, He  is  hardly  changed  a  bit,"  said  my  fa- 
ther, stopping  short  for  a  moment,  and  then  he, 
too,  stepped  forward  quickly  with  an  outstretched 
hand,  and  the  old  man  in  turn  stopped,  stared, 
frowned.  "  I  am  Thackeray,  my  name  is  Thacke- 
ray," said  my  father,  eagerly  and  shyly  as  was  his 
way  ;  and  after  another  stare  from  the  doctor,  sud- 
denly came  a  friendly  lighting  up  and  exclaiming 
and  welcoming  and  hand -shaking  and  laughing, 
while  the  pretty  white  dog  leaped  up  and  down,  as 
much  interested  as  we  were  in  the  meeting. 

"  You  have  grown  so  gray  I  did  not  know  you  at 
first,"  said  the  doctor  in  English.  And  my  father 
laughed  and  said  he  was  a  great  deal  grayer  now 
than  the  doctor  himself ;  then  he  introduced  us  to 


no      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

the  old  man,  who  shook  us  gravely  by  the  finger-tips 
with  a  certain  austere  friendliness,  and  once  more 
he  turned  again  with  a  happy,  kind,  grim  face  to 
my  father.  Yes,  he  had  followed  his  career  with 
interest ;  he  had  heard  of  him  from  this  man  and 
that  man  ;  he  had  read  one  of  his  books  —  not  all. 
Why  had  he  never  sent  any,  why  had  he  never  come 
back  before?  "You  must  bring  your  misses  and 
all  come  and  breakfast  at  my  lodging,"  said  Dr. 
Weisscnborne. 

"  And  is  this  your  old  dog?"  my  father  asked,  af- 
ter accepting  the  doctor's  invitation.  Dr.  Weisscn- 
borne shook  his  head.  Alas  !  the  old  dog  was  no 
more;  he  died  two  years  before.  Meanwhile  the 
young  dog  was  very  much  there,  frisking  and  career- 
ing in  cheerful  circles  round  about  us.  The  doctor 
and  his  dog  had  just  been  starting  for  their  daily 
walk  in  the  woods  when  they  met  us,  and  they 
now  invited  us  to  accompany  them.  We  called 
at  the  lodging  by  the  way  to  announce  our  return 
to  breakfast,  and  then  started  off  together  for  the 
park.  The  park  (I  am  writing  of  years  and  years 
ago)  was  a  bright,  green  little  wood,  with  leaves  and 
twigs  and  cheerful  lights,  with  small  trees  not  very 
thickly  planted  on  the  steep  slopes,  with  many  nar- 
row paths  wandering  into  green  depths,  and  with 
seats  erected  at  intervals  along  the  way.  On  one 
of   these   seats   the    old    professor   showed    us  an 


TO    WEIMAR    AND    BACK  III 

inscription  cut  deep  into  the  wood  with  a  knife, 
^^ Doctor  W.andhisdogy  Who  had  carved  it?  He 
did  not  know.  But  besides  this  inscription,  on  ev- 
ery one  of  the  benches  where  Goethe  used  to  rest, 
and  on  every  tree  which  used  to  shade  his  head, 
was  written  another  inscription,  invisible  indeed, 
and  yet  which  we  seemed  to  read  all  along  the  way 
— "  Here  Goethe's  life  was  spent ;  here  he  walked, 
here  he  rested  ;  his  feet  have  passed  to  and  fro 
along  this  narrow  pathway.  It  leads  to  his  garden- 
house." 

It  was  lovely  summer  weather,  as  I  have  said,  that 
weather  which  used  to  be  so  common  when  one  was 
young,  and  which  I  dare  say  our  children  still  dis- 
cover now,  though  we  cannot  always  enjoy  it.  We 
came  back  with  our  friend  the  doctor,  and  break- 
fasted with  him  in  his  small  apartment,  in  a  room 
full  of  books,  at  a  tiny  table  drawn  to  an  open  win- 
dow ;  then  after  breakfast  we  sat  in  the  professor's 
garden  among  the  nasturtiums.  IVIy  sister  and  I 
were  given  books  to  read ;  they  were  translations 
for  the  use  of  students,  I  remember ;  and  the  old 
friends  smoked  together  and  talked  over  a  hundred 
things.  Amalia  was  married  and  had  several  chil- 
dren ;  she  was  aAvay.  ]\Iadame  von  Goethe  was  still 
in  Weimar  with  her  sons,  and  Fraulein  von  Pog- 
wishe,  her  sister,  was  also  there.  "  They  would  be 
delighted  to   see  you  again,"   said   the  professor. 


112       CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

"  We  will  go  together,  and  leave  the  young  misses 
here  till  our  return."  But  not  so;  our  father  de- 
clared Ave  also  must  be  allowed  to  come.  My  rec- 
ollections (according  to  the  wont  of  such  provoking 
things)  here  begin  to  fail  me,  and  in  the  one  partic- 
ular which  is  of  any  interest ;  for  though  we  vis- 
ited Goethe's  old  house,  I  can  scarcely  remember 
it  at  all,  only  that  the  doctor  said  Madame  von 
Goethe  had  moved  after  Goethe's  death.  She  lived 
in  a  handsome  house  in  the  town,  with  a  fine  stair- 
case running  up  between  straight  walls,  and  lead- 
ing into  a  sort  of  open  hall,  where,  amid  a  good 
deal  of  marble  and  stateliness,  stood  two  little  un- 
pretending ladies  by  a  big  round  table  piled  with 
many  books  and  papers.  The  ladies  were  IVIadame 
von  Goethe  and  her  sister.  Dr.  Weissenborne  went 
first  and  announced  an  old  friend,  and  then  ensued 
more  welcomings  and  friendly  exclamations  and 
quick  recognitions  on  both  sides,  benevolently  su- 
perintended by  our  Virgil.  "And  are  you  both  as 
fond  of  reading  novels  as  ever?"  my  father  asked. 
The  ladies  laughed ;  they  said  "  Yes,  indeed,"  and 
pointed  to  a  boxful  of  books  which  had  just  arrived, 
with  several  English  novels  among  them,  which  they 
had  been  unpacking  as  we  came  in.  Then  the  sons 
of  the  house  were  sent  for — kind  and  friendly  and 
unassuming  young  men,  walking  in,  and  as  much 
interested   and   pleased    to  witness  their   parent's 


TO    WEIMAR   AND    BACK  II3 

pleasure  as  we  were ;  not  handsome,  with  nothing 
of  their  grandfather's  noble  aspect  (as  one  sees  it 
depicted),  but  with  most  charming  and  courteous 
ways.  One  was  a  painter,  the  mother  told  us,  the 
other  a  musician.  And  while  my  father  talked  to 
the  elder  ladies,  the  young  men  took  us  younger 
ones  in  hand.  They  offered  to  show  us  the  cele- 
brated garden-house,  and  asked  us  to  drink  tea  there 
next  day.  And  so  it  happened  that  once  more  we 
found  ourselves  being  conducted  through  the  little 
shady  wood.  But  to  be  walking  there  with  Goethe's 
family,  with  his  grandsons  and  their  mother,  the 
Ottilie  who  had  held  the  dying  poet's  hand  to  the 
last ;  to  be  going  to  his  favorite  resort  where  so 
much  of  his  time  was  spent  ;  to  hear  him  so  fa- 
miliarly quoted  and  spoken  of,  was  something  like 
hearing  a  distant  echo  of  the  great  voice  itself ; 
something  like  seeing  the  skirts  of  his  dressing-gown 
just  waving  before  us.  And  at  the  age  I  was  then 
impressions  are  so  vivid  that  I  have  always  all  my 
life  had  a  vague  feeling  of  having  been  in  Goethe's 
presence.  We  seemed  to  find  something  of  it  every- 
where, most  of  all  in  the  little  garden-house,  in  the 
bare  and  simple  room  where  he  used  to  write.  One 
of  the  kind  young  men  went  to  the  window  and 
showed  us  something  on  the  pane.  What  it  was 
I  know  not  clearly,  but  I  think  it  was  his  name 
written  with  a  diamond  ;  and  finally,  in  the  garden, 


114      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

at  a  wooden  table,  among  trees  and  dancing  shad- 
ows, we  drank  our  tea,  and  I  remember  Wolfgang 
von  Goethe  handing  a  teacup,  and  the  look  of  it, 
and  suddenly  the  whole  thing  vanishes.  .  .  .  There 
was  a  certain  simple  dignity  and  hospitality  in  it  all 
which  seems  to  belong  to  all  the  traditions  of  hos- 
pitable Weimar,  and  my  father's  pleasure  and  hap- 
py emotion  gave  a  value  and  importance  to  every 
tiny  detail  of  that  short  but  happy  time.  Even  the 
people  at  the  inn  remembered  him,  and  came  out 
to  greet  him  ;  but  they  sent  in  such  an  enormous 
bill  as  we  were  departing  on  the  evening  of  the 
second  day  that  he  exclaimed  in  dismay  to  the 
waiter,  "  So  much  for  sentimental  recollections ! 
Tell  the  host  I  shall  never  be  able  to  afford  to 
come  back  to  Weimar  again." 

The  waiter  stared  ;  I  wonder  if  he  delivered  the 
message.  The  hotel  -  bill  I  have  just  mentioned 
was  a  real  disappointment  to  my  father,  and,  alas 
for  disillusions  !  another  more  serious  shock,  a  meet- 
ing which  was  no  meeting,  somewhat  dashed  the 
remembrance  of  Amalia  von  X. 

It  happened  at  Venice,  a  year  or  two  after  our 
visit  to  Weimar.  We  were  breakfasting  at  a  long 
table  where  a  fat  lady  also  sat  a  little  way  off,  with 
a  pale  fat  little  boy  beside  her.  She  was  stout;  she 
was  dressed  in  light  green  ;  she  was  silent ;  she  was 
eating  an  egg.     The  sa/a  of  the  great  marble  hotel 


TO    WEIMAR    AND    BACK  II5 

was  shaded  from  the  blaze  of  sunshine,  but  stray 
gleams  shot  across  the  dim  hall,  falling  on  the 
palms  and  the  orange-trees  beyond  the  lady,  who 
gravely  shifted  her  place  as  the  sunlight  dazzled 
her.  Our  own  meal  was  also  spread,  and  my  sister 
and  I  were  only  waiting  for  my  father  to  begin. 
He  came  in  presently,  saying  he  had  been  looking 
at  the  guest -book  in  the  outer  hall,  and  he  had 
seen  a  name  which  had  interested  him  very  much. 
"  Frau  von  Z.  Geboren  von  X.  It  must  be  Amalia! 
She  must  be  here — in  the  hotel,"  he  said  ;  and  as 
he  spoke  he  asked  a  waiter  whether  Madame  von 
Z.  was  still  in  the  hotel.  "  I  believe  that  is  Madame 
von  Z.,"  said  the  waiter,  pointing  to  the  fat  lady. 
The  lady  looked  up  and  then  went  on  with  her 
egg,  and  my  poor  father  turned  away,  saying  in  a 
low,  overwhelmed  voice,  "  That  Amalia  !  That  can- 
not be  Amalia."  I  could  not  understand  his  silence, 
his  discomposure.  "  Aren't  you  going  to  speak  to 
her?  Oh,  please  do  go  and  speak  to  her  I"  we  both 
cried.  "  Do  make  sure  if  it  is  Amalia."  But  he 
shook  his  head.  "  I  can't,"  he  said  ;  "  I  had  rather 
not."  Amalia  meanwhile,  having  finished  her  t<g^, 
rose  deliberately,  put  down  her  napkin  and  walked 
away,  followed  by  her  little  boy. 

Things  don't  happen  altogether  at  the  same  time  ; 
they  don't  quite  begin  or  end  all  at  once.  Once 
more    I    heard   of  Amalia   long  years    afterwards, 


Il6      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

when  by  a  happy  hospitable  chance  I  met  Dr. 
Norman  MacLeod  at  the  house  of  my  old  friends, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cunliffe.  I  was  looking  at  him,  and 
thinking  that  in  some  indefinable  way  he  put  me 
in  mind  of  the  past,  when  he  suddenly  asked  me  if 
I  knew  that  he  and  my  father  had  been  together 
as  boys  at  Weimar,  learning  German  from  the  same 
professor,  and  both  in  love  with  the  same  beautiful 
girl,  *'  What,  Amalia?  Dr.  Weissenborne?"  I  cried. 
"  Dear  me!  do  you  know  about  Amalia?"  said  Dr. 
MacLeod,  "  and  do  you  know  about  old  Weissen- 
borne ?  I  thought  I  was  the  only  person  left  to 
remember  them.  We  all  learned  from  Weissen- 
borne, we  were  all  in  love  with  Amalia,  every  one 
of  us,  your  father  too !  What  happy  days  those 
were !"  And  then  he  went  on  to  tell  us  that  years 
and  years  afterwards,  when  they  met  again  on  the 
occasion  of  one  of  the  lecturing  tours  in  Scotland, 
he.  Dr.  MacLeod,  and  the  rest  of  the  notabilities 
were  all  assembled  to  receive  the  lecturer  on  the 
platform,  and  as  my  father  came  by  carrying  his' 
papers  and  advancing  to  take  his  place  at  the 
reading-desk,  he  recognized  Dr.  MacLeod  as  he 
passed,  and  in  the  face  of  all  the  audience  he  bent 
forward  and  said,  gravely,  without  stopping  one 
moment  on  his  way, "  A-/;  licbc  Amalia  dock,'"  and 
so  went  on  to  deliver  his  lecture. 

Dr.  MacLeod  also   met  Amalia  once   agfain  in 


TO   WEIMAR   AND    BACK  II7 

after-life,  and  to  him,  too,  had  come  a  disiUusion. 
He,  too,  had  been  overwhehned  and  shocked  by 
tlie  change  of  years.  Poor  lady !  I  can't  help  be- 
ing very  sorry  for  her ;  to  have  had  two  such 
friends  and  not  to  have  kept  them  seems  a  cruel 
fate.  To  have  been  so  charming,  that  her  present 
seemed  but  a  calumny  upon  the  past.  It  is  like 
the  story  of  the  woman  who  flew  into  a  fury  with 
her  own  portrait,  young,  smiling,  and  triumphant, 
and  who  destroyed  it,  so  as  not  to  be  taunted  by 
the  past  any  more.  Let  us  hope  that  Frau  von  Z. 
was  never  conscious  of  her  loss,  never  looked  upon 
this  picture  and  on  that. 

Since  writing  all  this,  I  have  found  an  old  letter 
from  my  father  to  his  mother,  and  written  from 
Weimar.  It  is  dated  29th  September,  1830.  "There 
is  a  capital  library  here,"  he  says,  "which  is  open  to 
me,  an  excellent  theatre  which  costs  a  shilling  a 
night,  and  a  charming  petite  socic'tc  Avhich  costs 
nothing.  Goethe,  the  great  lion  of  Weimar,  I  have 
not  yet  seen,  but  his  daughter-in-law  has  promised 
to  introduce  me."  Then  he  describes  going  to 
court :  "  I  have  had  to  air  my  legs  in  black  breech- 
es and  to  sport  a  black  coat,  black  waistcoat,  and 
cock-hat,  looking  something  like  a  cross  between  a 
footman  and  a  Methodist  parson. 

"  We  have  had  three  operas,"  he  goes  on;  "  •  Me- 


Il8       CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

dea '  and  the  '  Barber  of  Seville '  and  the  '  Flauto 
Magico.'  Hummel  conducts  the  orchestra  [then 
comes  a  sketch  of  Hummel  with  huge  shirt-collar]. 
The  orchestra  is  excellent,  but  the  singers  are  not 
first-rate."  .  .  .  Amalia  must  have  had  rivals,  even 
in  those  early  days,  for  this  same  letter  goes  on 
to  say :  "  I  have  fallen  in  love  with  the  Princess  of 
Weimar,  who  is  unluckily  married  to  Prince  Charles 
of  Prussia.  I  must  get  over  this  unfortunate  pas- 
sion, which  will  otherwise,  I  fear,  bring  me  to  an 
untimely  end.  There  are  several  very  charming 
young  persons  of  the  female  sex  here  ;  Miss  Amalia 
von  X.  and  ditto  von  Pappenheim  are  the  evening 
belles." 

"  Of  winter  nights,"  says  my  father  in  the  other 
well-known  letter  which  is  printed  in  Lewes's  Li/e 
of  Goethe,  "we  used  to  charter  sedan-chairs  in 
which  we  were  carried  through  the  snow  to  those 
pleasant  court  entertainments.  I  for  my  part  was 
fortunate  enough  to  purchase  Schiller's  sword, 
which  formed  a  part  of  my  court  costume  and  still 
hangs  in  my  study, ''■'  and  puts  me  in  mind  of  days 
of  youth  the  most  kindly  and  delightful." 


*  So  he  wrote  in  1855,  but  a  few  years  after  he  gave  the  sword  to 
a  friend  for  whom  lie  had  a  great  affection,  who  carried  it  back  to 
America  as  a  token  of  good-will  and  sympathy.  Tliis  friend  was 
liayard  Taylor,  a  true  knight,  and  worthy  to  carry  the  honorable 
bloodless  \\-eapon. 


VIA  WILLIS'S   ROOMS  TO   CHELSEA 


VIII 


One  day  Jackson  drove  the  blue  fly  up  to  the 
door,  and  my  father,  looking  rather  smart,  with  a 
packet  of  papers  in  his  hand,  and  my  grandmother, 
who  had  come  over  from  Paris,  and  my  sister  and 
I  all  got  in,  and  we  drove  away,  a  nervous  com- 
pany, to  Willis's  Rooms  to  hear  the  first  of  the 
lectures  upon  the  English  Humorists.  My  father 
was  of  course  very  nervous,  but  as  we  drove  along 
he  made  little  jokes  to  reassure  us  all ;  then  to- 
gether we  mounted  the  carpeted  staircase  leading 
to  the  long,  empty  room,  and  after  a  time  he  left 
us.  I  have  no  very  pleasant  recollection  of  that 
particular  half- hour  of  my  life.  I  remember  the 
unoccupied  chairs,  and  people  coming  in  rather 
subdued,  as  if  into  a  church.  Many  of  the  win- 
dows were  open,  the  sky  looked  very  blue  over  the 
roof-tops,  our  hearts  were  thumping,  the  carriages 
outside  came  driving  up  with  distant  rumbling 
sounds  growing  louder  and  louder ;  and  I  remem- 
ber wondering  at  the  time  whether  I  should  mind 
very  much  if  the  day  of  judgment  could  suddenly 
come  upon  us  and  thus  put  an  end  to  this  terrible 


122       CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

ordeal,  which  desperate  imagination  was  a  real  con- 
solation to  me  at  the  moment.  It  is  a  happiness 
to  realize  now  who  it  was  who  came  to  my  dear 
father's  help  when  all  our  emotion  and  sympathy 
was,  I  fear,  only  a  hinderance.  I  cannot  help  giv- 
ing the  passage  out  of  Mrs.  Kemble's  records  con- 
cerning my  father's  lectures,  although  it  may  have 
already  been  quoted  by  others. 

"  I  met  Thackeray  at  Miss  Perry's  at  dinner,  a  few  days 
before  he  began  his  course  of  lectures  on  the  English  Hu- 
morists, and  he  asked  me  to  come  and  hear  him,  and  told 
me  he  was  so  nervous  about  it  that  he  was  afraid  he  should 
break  down.  .  .  . 

"  He  was  to  lecture  at  Willis's  Rooms,  in  the  same  room 
where  I  read  ;  and  going  thither  before  the  time  for  his  be- 
ginning I  found  him  standing  like  a  forlorn,  disconsolate 
giant  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  gazing  about  him.  'O 
Lord  !'  he  exclaimed,  as  he  shook  hands  with  me, '  I'm  sick 
at  m}^  stomach  with  fright !'  I  spoke  some  words  of  en- 
couragement to  him  and  was  going  away,  but  he  held  my 
hand  like  a  scared  child,  crying,  '  Oh,  don't  leave  me  !' 
'  But,'  said  I, '  Thackeray,  you  mustn't  stand  here.  Your 
audience  are  beginning  to  come  in ' ;  and  I  drew  him  from 
the  middle  of  the  chairs  and  benches,  which  were  begin- 
ning to  be  occupied,  into  the  retiring-room  adjoining  the 
lecture-room,  my  own  reading  having  made  me  perfectly 
familiar  with  both.  '  Oh,'  he  said,  '  if  I  could  only  get  at 
that  confounded  thing  [his  lecture],  to  have  a  last  look  at 
it!'  'Where  is  it?'  said  I.  '  Oh,  in  the  next  room  on  the 
reading-desk.'     'Well,'  said  I,  'if  you  don't  like  to  go  in 


y/A    WILLIS  S   ROOMS   TO    CHELSEA  1 23 

and  get  it,  I'll  fetch  it  for  you.'  And  remembering  well 
the  position  of  my  reading-table,  which  had  been  close  to 
the  door  of  the  retiring-room,  I  darted  in,  hoping  to  snatch 
the  manuscript  without  attracting  the  attention  of  the  au- 
dience, with  which  the  room  was  already  nearly  full.  I  had 
been  used  to  deliver  my  readings  seated  at  a  very  low  ta- 
ble, but  my  friend  Thackeray  gave  his  lectures  standing, 
and  had  had  a  reading-desk  placed  on  the  platform,  adapt- 
ed to  his  own  very  tall  stature,  so  that  when  I  came  to 
get  his  manuscript  it  was  almost  above  my  head.  Though 
rather  disconcerted,  I  was  determined  not  to  go  back  with- 
out it,  and  so  made  a  half-jump  and  a  clutch  at  the  book, 
when  every  leaf  of  it  (they  were  not  fastened  together) 
came  fluttering  separately  down  about  me.  I  hardly  know 
what  I  did,  but  I  think  I  must  have  gone  nearly  on  all-fours 
in  my  agony  to  gather  up  the  scattered  leaves,  and  retreat- 
ing with  them,  held  them  out  in  dismay  to  poor  Thack- 
eray, crying, '  Oh,  look,  look  what  a  dreadful  thing  I  have 
done!'  '  My  dear  soul,' said  he,  'you  couldn't  have  done 
better  for  me.  I  have  just  a  quarter  of  an  hour  to  wait 
here,  and  it  will  take  me  about  that  to  page  this  again,  and 
it's  the  best  thing  in  the  world  that  could  have  happened.'" 

And  so  while  my  father  was  paging  the  manu- 
script, and  we  were  waiting  outside,  the  people 
kept  coming  in  more  and  more  quickly  and  filling 
up  the  places  in  front  of  us,  behind  us,  all  round 
us,  settling  down,  unfastening  their  wraps,  nodding 
to  each  other.  I  was  gazing  at  a  lady  who  had 
taken  off  her  bonnet  and  sat  in  a  little  Quaker  cap 
just  in  front  of  me,  when  suddenly,  there  stood  my 


124      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

father  facing  this  great  roomful.  Though  we  had 
been  waiting  all  the  time,  he  came  sooner  than  we 
expected.  His  voice  sounded  strained  and  odd  for 
an  instant,  and  I  didn't  recognize  it.  "  In  treating 
of  the  English  humorists  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
it  is  of  the  men  rather  than  of  their  works,"  so  the 
strange  voice  began,  and  then  almost  immediately 
it  softened  and  deepened  and  became  his  own,  and 
at  the  same  time  as  he  stood  there  I  realized  that 
he  looked  just  like  himself :  there  was  his  waist- 
coat and  his  watch-chain,  and  my  vague  youthful 
spinnings  and  chokings  and  confusions  began  to 
subside. 

I  was  now  glad  the  day  of  judgment  hadn't  come. 
I  don't  remember  taking  in  one  word  after  the  first 
sentence,  but  sat  staring  and  taking  breath,  and 
realizing  somehow  that  all  was  going  well.  Among 
other  things  I  did  notice,  and  do  remember,  the 
proud  and  happy  look  of  light  and  relief  in  my 
grandmother's  face,  and  her  beautiful  gray  eyes  all 
shining,  when  the  people  applauded,  and  the  lect- 
ure was  all  over  just  as  unexpectedly  as  it  had 
begun,  and  the  lady  in  the  Quaker  cap  tied  her 
bonnet  on  again,  and  somebody  said  she  was  the 
Duchess  of  Sutherland,  and  the  people  were  all 
talking  and  crowding  up  and  shaking  hands  with 
the  lecturer.  Then  came  the  happy  drive  home  ; 
Jackson    made    the   horse   gallop,   and    my   father 


VIA    WILLIS  S    ROOMS   TO    CHELSEA  1 25 

laughed  and  made  real  jokes  without  any  effort, 
and  we  laughed  and  enjoyed  every  jolt  and  turn- 
ing on  the  way  home  this  time. 

These  lectures  gradually  became  a  part  of  our  ev- 
ery-day  life,  just  as  much  as  the  books  and  the  arti- 
cles my  father  used  to  write,  and  the  little  printers' 
boys  waiting  and  swinging  their  legs  in  the  hall. 
Young  men's  institutes  and  provincial  agencies 
used  to  invite  him  to  the  north  and  to  the  south. 
He  came  and  he  went ;  sometimes  he  read  in  the 
suburbs  or  at  friends'  houses,  at  Mrs.  Procter's  and 
elsewhere ;  once  he  read  at  home,  at  the  request,  I 
think,  of  his  well-loved  Mrs.  Elliot  and  Miss  Perry. 
Sometimes  he  took  us  with  him  when  he  was  not 
going  very  far  from  home.  To  this  day  I  can  en- 
joy that  glorious  summer's  day  we  first  spent  at 
Oxford  among  the  gardens  and  the  gables,  and 
where,  with  our  host  St.  John  Thackeray,  we  stood 
in  the  street  outside  watching  the  backs  of  the  au- 
dience pressing  in  to  hear  the  lecture. 

One  year  my  father  told  us  that  he  was  going 
away — he  was  going  to  America  to  give  his  lect- 
ures there  ;  he  was  going  as  soon  as  he  had  fin- 
ished the  book  upon  which  he  was  engaged,  and 
we  were  to  spend  the  winter  in  Paris  during  his 
absence.  "  I  must  replace  my  patrimony,"  he  said, 
"and  make  some  provision  for  your  mother  and  for 
you,  and  you  must  go  to  my  mother's  and  spend 


126      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

the  winter  with  her ;  j^ou  must  work  as  hard  as 
you  can  while  I  am  away,  and  consider  yourselves 
at  college  in  a  fashion,  and  learn  French  and  a  lit- 
tle music  to  play  me  to  sleep  of  an  evening  when 
I  come  home."  Alas!  we  neither  of  us  could  ever 
make  enough  music  to  send  him  to  sleep,  though 
I  have  often  sent  him  out  of  the  room.  My  hair 
used  to  stand  on  end,  my  fingers  used  to  turn  to 
stone  when  I  tried  to  play  to  him ;  even  the  things 
I  liked  best  seemed  to  go  off  the  rails  in  some  gen- 
eral catastrophe. 

America  was  farther  away  then  than  it  is  now, 
when  a  thousand  Columbuses  or  Columbi  (what- 
ever the  plural  may  be)  cross  the  ocean  week  by 
w^eek  with  a  parting  nod  and  a  return  ticket.  That 
whole  summer  of  1854  seemed  darkened  by  the 
coming  separation.  It  was  a  long  and  burning 
summer ;  even  the  shadows  seemed  burned  up,  and 
so  were  the  gardens  at  the  back  of  the  houses,  and 
the  brown  turf  and  the  avenues  of  Kensington  Gar- 
dens, those  gardens  where  that  strange  mist  which 
is  not  quite  fog  nor  quite  real  nor  even  a  fancy, 
but  which  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  very 
spirit  of  London  itself,  comes  rising  along  the 
straight  and  formal  distances.  My  father  was  hard 
at  work  finishing  a  book  which  some  people  still 
say  is  the  best  of  all  his  books.  People  read  it 
then,  when  it  came  out,  and   read   it  still  and  re- 


r/A    WILLIS  S    ROOMS   TO   CHELSEA  1 27 

read  it.  He  used  to  write  in  his  study  with  the 
vine  shading  the  two  windows,  and  we  used  to  do 
our  lessons,  or  sit  sewing  and  reading  in  the  front 
room  witli  the  bow-window  to  the  street ;  and  one 
day,  as  we  were  there  with  our  governess,  my  fa- 
ther came  in  in  great  excitement.  "  There's  a 
young  fellow  just  come,"  said  he  ;  "  he  has  brought 
a  thousand  pounds  in  his  pocket;  he  has  made  me 
an  offer  for  my  book  ;  it's  the  most  spirited,  hand- 
some offer  ;  I  scarcely  like  to  take  him  at  his  word  ; 
he's  hardly  more  than  a  boy ;  his  name  is  George 
Smith  ;  he  is  waiting  there  now,  and  I  must  go 
back  ;"  and  then,  after  walking  once  up  and  down 
the  room,  my  father  went  away,  and  for  the  first 
time,  a  lifetime  ago,  I  heard  the  name  of  this  good 
friend-to-be. 

A  great  many  arrangements  were  made  for  the 
coming  year's  absence  ;  there  was  a  talk  of  letting 
the  house,  but  it  was  only  shut  up  with  a  couple 
of  old  servants  to  keep  it.  My  father's  servants 
rarely  left  him.  His  old  publishers  gave  him  a  sil- 
ver punch-bowl,  and  his  new  publisher  (I  am  writ- 
ing of  nearly  half  a  century  ago)  gave  him  a  beau- 
tiful despatch-box ;  and  this  same  good  friend  gave 
to  my  sister  and  to  me  a  noble  drawing  of  our  fa- 
ther's head,  by  Samuel  Lawrence,  to  look  at  while 
he  was  away.  Then  we  all  set  off  and  went  abroad 
to  rejoin  our  grandmother  and  grandfather,  and  for 


128      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

a  little  while  we  travelled  together,  and  then  my 
father  had  to  leave  us.  I  can  see  him  now  as  he 
stood  beside  a  wooden  column  at  some  railway 
junction — Olten,  I  think  it  was — and  he  stooped  to 
kiss  us  ;  and  then  he  put  us  into  our  railway  car- 
riage, and  we  were  carried  off  with  heavy  hearts 
while  he  stood  looking  at  us  fixedly,  tall  and 
straight,  and  the  train  scudded  off.  Somehow  we 
never  got  used  to  these  partings,  though  our  father 
returned  each  time  safe  and  in  good  spirits,  and 
pleased  with  his  journey  and  its  results. 

People  can  still  walk  through  Kensington  Square 
and  look  up  at  the  house,  yet  standing  with  its  win- 
dows facing  westward,  in  which  Rachel  Castlewood 
once  dwelt,  and  where  Colonel  Esmond  came,  and 
where  the  Pretender  also  came  in  his  blond  peri- 
wig and  blue  ribbon,  and  threw  away — so  Colonel 
Esmond  tells  us — a  kingdom  for  a  passing  fancy. 
In  so  looking  they  may  well  people  the  past  with 
figures  all  touched  with  its  color,  and  yet  so  strange- 
ly living  still  that  as  one  reads  one  seems  to  haVe 
known  them  all.  But  any  one  who  may  try  to  fol- 
low the  familiar  shades  out  of  the  precincts  of  Ken- 
sington Square  and  beyond  Young  Street,  where 
the  porters  with  the  chairs  must  have  passed,  into 
the  high-road  which  leads  to  London,  must  be  im- 
aginative indeed  to  conjure  up  their  remembrance 
any  more.     The  King's  Arms,  where  the  conspira- 


y/A    WILLIS  S    ROOMS    TO   CHELSEA  129 

tors  were  assembled  when  Kinj:^  George  was  pro- 
claimed, has  vanished  out  of  sight ;  its  quiet  gar- 
dens are  piled  up  high  with  bricks  and  stories  rear- 
ing like  a  new  Babel  to  the  sky.  There  are  cities 
spreading  where  the  market-gardens  were  flowering 
but  yesterday,  tram-cars  passing,  engines  whistling. 
I  can  scarcely  imagine  my  father  himself  writing 
Esvuvid  in  such  a  chaos.  Novels  of  the  future  will 
take  place  by  telegram,  in  flats,  in  lifts,  in  metro- 
politan railways — they  will  whirl,  Ixion-like,  on  per- 
petual bicycles  and  wheels.  It  is  difificult  to  imag- 
ine devotion  such  as  Esmond's  continuing  in  this 
present  sequence  of  events  ;  it  seems  as  if  new  im- 
pulses, both  physical  and  mental,  must  arise  in  such 
a  multiplicity  of  impressions  ;  as  if  a  new  race  must 
people  the  earth,  Beatrice,  indeed,  might  belong  to 
these  latter  times  ;  but  Esmond  and  Lady  Castle- 
wood  would  seem  strangely  out  of  place." 

*  Some  one  has  given  me  a  map  of  Kensington  in  1764,  by  which 
one  can  see  what  lanes  and  green  fields  and  gardens  still  lay  be- 
tween tlie  village  and  London,  more  than  a  mile  away.  Nursery 
gardens,  wide  open  spaces,  brick  kilns  on  Campden  Hill,  and  gravel 
pits.  In  tlie  midst  of  green  fields  stood  three  or  four  houses  called 
"  Bays  Watering."  The  Serpentine  was  called  the  New  River, 
Kensington  Gore  consisted  of  five  houses.  Hogmore  Lane  and 
Lobb's  Field  ran  from  the  high-road  towards  Clielsea.  Though  I 
have  the  map  before  me,  I  can  hardly  feel  that  it  was  ever  true,  and 
yet  I  remember  Hogmore  Lane.  And  there  was  Love  Lane  lieyond, 
along  wliich  we  used  to  go  for  straggling  walks  with  our  playfellows 
the  Coles,  who  lived  in  the  Terrace  close  by.  We  used  to  start  about 
six  o'clock  on  summer  mornings,  and  come  home  with  branches  of 
hawthorn  flowers  to  decorate  our  school-room  and  to  remind  our- 
selves that  it  was  May-time. 
9 


130      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

There  is  one  part  of  London  which,  however,  still 
seems  to  me  little  changed  since  then,  and  that  is 
Cheyne  Row,  which  used  to  be  at  the  end  of  all  these 
hawthorn  lanes,  by  the  onward  course  of  fashion 
and  events ;  and  that  is  Chelsea,  whither  we  used 
often  to  be  sent  as  children,  crossing  the  lanes  and 
fields,  and  coming  by  a  pond  and  a  narrow  street 
called  Paradise  Row  into  the  King's  Road,  and 
then  after  a  few  minutes'  walk  to  Cheyne  Row, 
where  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Carlyle  lived  to  the  end  of 
their  lives,  and  which  seems  to  all  of  us  made  living 
still  by  their  dead  footsteps. 

The  old  house  in  Cheyne  Row  is  one  of  the  first 
things  I  can  remember  when  we  came  to  London. 
Its  stillness,  its  dimness,  its  panelled  walls,  its  carved 
balusters,  anci  tlie  quiet  garden  behind,  where  at 
intervals  in  the  brickwork  lay  the  tobacco-pipes  all 
ready  for  use ;  little  Nero,  the  doggie,  in  his  little 
coat,  barking  and  trembling  in  every  limb — it  all 
comes  before  one  with  so  much  clearness  that,  al- 
though  so  much  has  been  said  about  that  home,  I 
cannot  omit  all  mention  of  a  place  which  made  so 
vivid  a  part  of  my  early  life. 

In  the  dining-room  stood  that  enchanting  screen 
covered  with  pictures,  drawings,  prints,  fashions, 
portraits  without  end,  which  my  father  liked  so 
much;  up-stairs  was  the  panelled  drawing-room 
with  its  windows  to  the  Row,  and  the  portrait  of 


VIA    WILLIS'S    ROOMS    TO    CHELSEA  131 

Oliver  Cromwell  hanging  opposite  the  windows. 
But  best  of  all,  there  was  Mrs.  Carlyle  herself,  a 
living  picture ;  Gainsborough  should  have  been 
alive  to  paint  her:  slim,  bright,  upright,  in  her 
place.  She  looked  like  one  of  the  grand  ladies  our 
father  used  sometimes  to  take  us  to  call  upon.  She 
used  to  be  handsomely  dressed  in  velvet  and  point 
lace.  She  sat  there  at  leisure  and  prepared  for  con- 
versation. She  was  not  familiar,  but  cordial,  digni- 
fied, interested  in  everything  as  she  sat  installed  in 
her  corner  of  the  sofa  by  one  of  the  little  tables  cov- 
ered with  knick-knacks  of  silver  and  mother-of-pearl. 

Almost  the  first  time  we  ever  went  to  see  her 
we  had  walked  to  Chelsea  through  the  snow,  and 
across  those  lanes  which  have  now  become  South 
Kensington,  and  w'hen  we  arrived,  numb  and  chilled 
and  tired,  we  found  in  the  dining-room  below,  stand- 
ing before  the  fire,  two  delicious  hot  cups  of  choco- 
late already  prepared  for  us,  with  saucers  placed 
upon  the  top.  "  I  thought  ye  would  be  frozen,"  said 
she,  and  the  hot  chocolate  became  a  sort  of  institu- 
tion. Again  and  again  she  has  sat  by,  benevolent 
and  spirited,  superintending  our  wintry  feasts,  in- 
viting our  confidences,  confiding  in  us  to  a  certain 
degree. 

She  used  to  tell  us  many  of  the  stories  which 
have  since  come  into  print.  She  was  never  weary 
of  discoursing  of  "Carlyle,"  of  his  genius,  his  dys- 


132       CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

pepsia,  of  quoting  his  sayings.  ''If  you  wish  for  a 
quiet  life,"  she  used  to  say,  "  never  you  marry  a 
dyspeptic  man  of  genius."  I  remember  she  used 
to  tell  us,  when  he  first  grew  a  beard,  how  all  the 
time  he  had  saved  by  ceasing  to  shave  he  spent 
wandering  about  the  house,  and  bemoaning  that 
which  was  amiss  in  the  universe.  As  children  we 
did  not  have  much  of  Carlyle's  company;  if  he 
came  in  and  sat  down  in  the  arm-chair,  which  was 
his  on  the  opposite  side  to  the  sofa,  we  immediately 
went  away;  but  the  sense  of  his  presence  overhead 
in  the  study  distinctly  added  to  our  enjoyment  so 
long  as  he  remained  up-stairs.  Mrs.  Carlyle  used 
to  tell  us  of  her  early  life,  of  her  love  for  study. 
Many  of  her  admonitions  and  friendly  warnings 
have  remained  in  my  memory.  Once,  looking  ex- 
pressively at  me  with  her  dark  eyes,  she  began  to 
speak  of  self-control.  "  We  have  all,"  she  said,  "  a 
great  deal  more  power  over  our  minds  than  it  is  at 
all  the  fashion  to  allow,  and  an  infinity  of  resource 
and  ability  to  use  it.  There  was  a  time  in  my  own 
life,"  she  said,  "  when  I  felt  that  unless  I  strove 
against  the  feeling  with  all  my  strength  and  might 
I  should  be  crazed  outright.  I  passed  through  that 
time  safely;  I  was  able  to  fight  it  out,  and  not  to 
let  myself  go.  People  can  help  themselves,  that  I 
am  convinced  of,  and  that  fact  is  not  nearly  enough 
dwelt  upon." 


yiA    WILLIS  S    ROOMS    TO   CHELSEA  1 33 

One  day  we  went  there;  we  were  no  longer  chil- 
dren. I  was  a  grown  young  lady,  keeping  a  diary 
at  the  time,  in  which  I  find  the  following  record  of 
a  brown-paper  parcel : — "  To  Mrs.  Carlyle's,  where 
we  found  Lady  Stanley  of  Alderley  just  leaving  the 
room;  then  Mrs.  Carlyle,  taking  up  the  talk  again, 
immediately  began  speaking  enthusiastically  about 
Adam  Bedc,  which  had  just  come  out.  She  had 
written  to  the  author,  she  said  ;  she  had  received 
grateful  messages  from  her  in  reply.  She  said  that 
Mr.  Carlyle  quite  declined  reading  the  book,  and 
when  she  expressed  a  hope  that  it  might  be  sent  to 
her,  '  What  should  she  send  it  to  you  for  ?'  he  said. 
*  Why  shouldn't  she  send  it  ?'  she  answered ;  *  she 
sent  me  the  first.'  '  You  are  just  like  all  weemen,' 
said  he.  (Mrs.  Carlyle  always  says  weemen.)  'You 
are  always  forming  unreasonable  expectations.'  " 

We  were  going  away,  for  we  heard  a  ring  at  the 
bell,  which  seemed  to  betoken  fresh  visitors.  Then 
the  door  opened,  and  in  came,  not  visitors,  but 
Charly  the  maid,  carrying  an  unmistakable  pub- 
lisher's brown-paper  parcel.  Mr.  Carlyle,  who  had 
followed  her  in,  came  and  sat  down  upon  the  sofa. 
Mrs.  Carlyle  exclaimed  and  started  forward.  We 
opened  our  eyes  in  delighted  partisanship ;  the  string 
was  cut,  and  there,  sure  enough,  were  the  three 
orange  volumes  of  Adam  Bede,  sent  with  the  au- 
thor's compliments. 


134      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS  > 

Here  are  two  notes  addressed  to  my  father  in  the 
philosopher's  handsome  cramped  handwriting : 

"Chelsea,  24th  May,  i860. 
"  Alas,  dear  Thackeray,  I  durst  as  soon  undertake  to  dance 
a  hornpipe  on  the  top  of  Bond  Steeple  as  to  eat  a  white- 
bait dinner  in  my  present  low  and  lost  state  !  Never  in  my 
life  was  I  at  such  a  pass.  You  are  a  good  brother  man ; 
and  I  am  grateful.     Pray  for  me,  and  still  hope  for  me  if 

you  can. 

"  Yours  ever, 

"  T.  Carlyle." 

"Chelsea,  26th  May,  i860. 

"  Dear  Thackeray, — The  thing  I  contemplated  just  now 
(or  the  nucleus  of  the  thing)  was  a  letter  concerning  that 
anecdote  about  Fonfenoy,  '  Faites  fcii.  Messieurs,'  on  the 
part  of  the  English,  with  answer  from  the  Gardes  Fran- 
qaises,  '  Begin  you,  gentlemen  ;  wouldn't  do  such  a  thing 
for  the  world !'  My  letter  is  from  Lord  Charles  Hay,  Cap- 
tain of  the  Scots  Fusiliers,  main  actor  in  the  business;  it 
was  sent  me  last  year  by  Lord  Giflford  ;  and  I  could  have 
made  a  little  story  out  of  it  which  would  have  been  worth 
publishing. 

"  But  on  applying  to  Lord  Gifford,  he  (what  he  is  himself, 
I  believe,  truly  sorry  for)  cannot  at  present  give  me  per- 
mission. So  the  poor  little  enterprise  falls  to  nothing 
again  ;  and  I  may  be  said  to  be  in  a  state  of  ill-luck  just 
now  1 

"  If  I  ever  in  the  end  of  this  book  have  life  left,  you  shall 
have  plenty  of  things.  But  for  the  time  being  I  can  only 
answer  de profundus  to  the  above  effect. 

"  Fair  wind  and  full  sea  to  vou  in  this  hitherto  so  success- 


VIA    WILLIS  S    ROOMS    TO   CHELSEA  135 

ful  voyage,  for  which  the  omens  certainly  are  on  all  sides 

good.     Your  people  do  not  send  me  a  copy  (since  No.  I.); 

but  we  always  draw  our  purse  upon  it  to  the  small  extent 

requisite. 

"  Yours  ever  truly, 

"T.  Carlyle." 

These  notes  were  written  when  the  CornJiill  was 
first  started,  an  eventful  time  in  our  lives. 

Some  voices  are  those  which  speak  to  us;  others 
speak  for  us.  The  first  belong  to  the  immortals 
who  dwell  apart  somewhere  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  common  life  and  moods,  and  it  is,  perhaps,  for 
that  very  reason  they  are  best  able  to  give  utter- 
ance to  oracles ;  the  others  belong  to  humanity 
itself,  and  among  these  latter  voices,  who  would 
not  reckon  Carlyle's  ? 

"  I  wish  you  could  get  Carlyle's  miscellaneous 
criticisms,"  wrote  my  father  in  1839,  '^^  ^  letter  to 
his  mother.  "  I  have  read  a  little  in  the  book.  A 
nobler  one  does  not  live  in  our  language,  I  am  sure, 
and  one  that  will  have  such  an  effect  on  our  ways 
of  thought  and  prejudices.  Criticism  has  been  a 
party  matter  with  us  till  now,  and  literature  is  a 
poor  political  lacquey.  Please  God  we  shall  begin, 
ere  long,  to  love  art  for  art's  sake.  It  is  Carlyle 
who  has  worked  more  than  any  other  to  give  it  its 
independence." 

I  went  out  with  my  father  one  evening  in  the 


J36      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

winter  of  1863,  and  as  we  were  driving  along  in  the 
dusk  by  the  Serpentine  we  passed  Carlyle  walking 
across  the  park,  and  my  father,  seeing  him,  leaned 
forward  and  waved  his  hands.  "  A  great,  benevo- 
lent shower  of  salutations,"  Carlyle  called  it,  when 
he  spoke  in  after-days  of  this  last  meeting. 

After  Mrs.  Carlyle's  death,  it  was  Carlyle  that  we 
used  to  go  and  see  in  the  old  drawing-room,  which 
he  took  to  inhabiting  altogether.  It  was  no  sur- 
prise, when  his  history  was  told,  to  realize  that  he 
had  been  sometimes  cross  and  often  contrary  ;  but 
that  passion  of  tender  love  and  remorse  and  devo- 
tion came  as  a  revelation  all  the  more  moving  that 
one  had  almost  guessed  it  at  times.  It  was  when 
my  own  father  died  that  something  was  revealed  to 
us  of  his  deep  and  tender  feeling. 

After  Carlyle  himself  was  laid  to  rest  I  went  for 
the  last  time  to  look  at  the  house  which  I  remem- 
bered all  my  life  ;  my  little  boy  was  with  me,  and 
he  began  crowing  and  pointing  to  the  old  screen 
full  of  pictures,  some  of  which  his  grandfather  had 
drawn.  It  still  stood  in  its  place  in  the  dining-room. 
From  behind  the  old  screen  came  Mrs.  Alexander 
Carlyle,  carrying  her  little  Tom,  who,  seeing  a  fel- 
low-baby, uttered  three  deep  notes,  and  in  them 
was  some  strange  echo  of  the  familiar  voice  that 
had  filled  the  house  so  long,  and  reached  how  far 
beyond  its  walls ! 


y/A  Willis's  rooms  to  chelsea  137 

P.S. — It  will  be  remembered  in  Lewes's  Li/e  of 
Goethe  there  is  an  account  of  a  birthday  gift  sent  by 
fifteen  EngUshmen  to  Goethe.  "  The  young  Car- 
lyle,  who  had  been  cheered  through  his  struggHng 
sadness  and  strengthened  for  the  part  he  was  to 
play  in  life  by  the  beauty  and  the  wisdom  which 
Goethe  had  revealed  to  him,  conceived  the  idea 
that  it  would  be  a  pleasant  and  a  fitting  thing  if 
some  of  the  few  admirers  of  Goethe  in  England 
forwarded  to  Weimar  a  trifling  token  of  their  ad- 
miration. On  reaching  home  Mrs.  Carlyle  at  once 
sketched  the  design  of  a  seal  to  be  engraved,  the 
Serpent  of  Eternity  encircling  a  star,  with  the 
words.  '  Ohne  Rast,  ohne  Hast  "  (Unhasting,  un- 
resting), in  allusion  to  the  well-known  verses, 

"  '  Like  a  star  unhasting,  unresting  be  each  one  fulfilling  his  God- 
given  hest.' " 

It  was  the  remembrance  of  this  little  incident 
which  suggested  long  years  afterwards  another 
small  presentation  at  a  time  when  Carlyle  was  liv- 
ing in  Cheyne  Row  with  his  niece.  There  had  been 
some  alarm  of  house-breakers  in  Chelsea,  which  sac- 
rilegious house-breakers,  not  content  with  robbing 
ordinary  people,  broke  into  Mr.  Carlyle's  house  and 
ran  away  again  without  carrying  off  anything  more 
valuable  than  a  dining-room  clock.  It  was,  as  I 
say,  the  remembrance  of  the  little  incident  of  the 


138      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

seal  which  suggested  to  some  one  the  idea  of  re- 
placing the  stolen  clock,  and  about  fifteen  of  Car- 
lyle's  friends  and  admirers  subscribed  to  purchase 
one,  a  small  sign  of  their  respect  and  good -will. 
Among  the  subscribers  were  his  old  friends  Lady 
Stanley  of  Alderley,  Lady  Airlie,  Mrs.  Oliphant, 
and  Mr.  Lecky.  Lady  Stanley  was  asked  to  be 
spokeswoman  on  the  occasion,  and  to  present  the 
little  gift.  It  was  Carlyle's  birthday,  and  a  dismal 
winter's  day;*  the  streets  were  shrouded  in  greenish 
vapors,  and  the  houses  looked  no  less  dreary  with- 
in than  the  streets  through  which  we  had  come. 
Somewhat  chilled  and  depressed,  we  all  assembled 
in  Lady  Stanley's  great  drawing-room  in  Dover 
Street,  where  the  fog  had  also  penetrated,  and  pres- 
ently from  the  farther  end  of  the  room,  advancing 
through  the  darkness,  came  Carlyle.  There  was  a 
moment's  pause.  No  one  moved.  He  stood  in  the 
middle  of  the  room  without  speaking.  No  doubt 
the  philosopher  as  well  as  his  disciples  felt  the  in- 
fluence of  the  atmosphere.  Lady  Stanley  went  to 
meet  him.  "  Here  is  a  little  birthday  present  we 
want  you  to  accept  from  us  all,  Mr.  Carlyle,"  said 
she,  quickly  pushing  up  before  him  a  small  table 
upon  which  stood  the  clock  ticking  all  ready  for  his 
acceptance.  Then  came  another  silence,  broken  by  a 
knell,  sadly  sounding  in  our  ears.     "  Eh,  what  have  I 

*  4th  December,  1794. 


r/A    WILLIS  S    ROOMS   TO   CHELSEA  139 

got  to  do  with  Time  any  more,"  he  said.  It  was  a 
melancholy  moment.  Nobody  could  speak.  The 
unfortunate  promoter  of  the  scheme  felt  her  heart 
sinking  into  her  shoes.  Had  she  but  had  the  wit 
to  answer  him  cheerfully,  to  assure  him  that  any- 
how Time  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  him,  the  lit- 
tle ceremony  might  have  been  less  of  a  fiasco  than 
it  assuredly  was;  and  yet  I  think  afterwards  the  old 
man  must  have  been  pleased,  and  liked  to  think  he 
was  remembered.  Few  people  could  value  sincer- 
ity as  he  did,  or  better  know  the  worth  of  love  and 
affectionate  respect. 


IN   VILLEGGIATURA 


IX 


I  HAVE  already  mentioned  my  father's  tour  in 
America  when  he  went  to  deliver  those  lectures 
which  had  been  so  successful  in  England.  Saying 
good-bye  is  the  price  one  has  to  pay  even  for  a 
prosperous  and  fortunate  expedition.  I  can  still 
see  him  as  he  stood  on  the  platform  of  the  railway 
station  at  Olten,  in  Belgium,  where  we  parted.  He 
stood  by  a  slender  iron  column,  looking  very  tall 
and  very  sad  as  he  watched  the  train  go  off  in 
which  we  were  bound  for  Switzerland  with  our 
grandparents.  He  himself  was  returning  to  Eng- 
land through  Germany.  He  had  to  correct  the 
proofs  of  Esmond  before  he  left,  and  to  give  some 
more  lectures  in  the  provinces,  and  to  wind  up 
things  at  home. 

]\Iy  grandmother  was  very  miserable  and  nervous. 
She  had  brought  him  a  life-belt  for  his  cabin  as  a 
farewell  gift,  and  thoroughly  frightened  herself  by 
so  doing.  We  were  too  young  to  be  nerx'ous,  but 
we  were  very  unhappy.  Our  dear  old  grandfather 
did  his  best  to  cheer  us  all,  and  after  we  had  parted 
from  my  father  he  made  out  all  sorts  of  pleasant 


144     CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

little  plans,  and  ordered  various  special  compotes 
and  tartlets  at  the  hotels  suited  to  our  youthful  ap- 
petites. He  took  us  for  walks  and  to  visit  muse- 
ums, and  he  always  consulted  any  fellow-travellers 
and  sight-seers  as  to  our  next  movements.  Indeed, 
our  journeyings  greatly  depended  upon  these  chance 
encounters  and  recommendations.  The  first  night, 
when  we  put  up  at  some  little  inn,  the  waiter 
brought  us  the  traveller's  book  to  write  our  names 
in ;  I  forget  all  about  the  place,  but  I  can  see  the 
book  and  the  table- spread,  and  what  I  do  most 
vividly  remember  is  our  despair  when,  instead  of 
the  neat  J/r.  Thackeray  and  family,  to  which  we 
were  used,  we  read  the  following  announcement  in 
our  grandfather's  handwriting:  ^' Schmid  Major,  en 
retraitc,  avec  Madame  sa  c'pouse  et  ses  deux  Made- 
inoiselles."  My  grandmother,  sad  as  she  was,  began 
to  laugh,  and  we  all  entreated  our  dear  old  major 
to  make  some  changes  in  the  inscription,  but  he 
stuck  to  it,  and  would  not  alter  a  single  letter. 

We  reached  Geneva  after  some  days.  There  at 
the  paste  restante  we  found  various  letters  waiting, 
and  news  of  our  father.  "As  for  the  arrival  at  this 
place  [he  was  writing  from  Salzburg],  it's  like  enter- 
ing into  fairyland,  it  is  so  beautiful;  and  the  Tyrol 
is  delightful  too,  but  not  like  our  Switzerland. 
And  one  Swiss  cottage  is  uncommonly  like  another, 
and  with  five  or  six  days  of  rocks  and  pinewoods  I 


IN   VILLEGGIATURA  I45 

feci  somehow  as  if  I've  had  enough  !"  Then  a  little 
further  on  he  writes:  "  Give  my  love  to  my  dearest 
mother,  and  have  her  to  understand  that  this  blue 
devil  of  which  I  complain  is  only  an  artistic  blue 
devil,  and  that  he  comes  always  before  I  get  to 
work,  and  that  there  is  no  other  reason.  .  .  .  There 
is  bad  music  here,  for  a  wonder,  at  the  beer  garden ; 
though  I  amused  myself  very  well  there  yesterday, 
opposite  a  pretty  little  child  of  three  years,  who 
ate  three  sausages  with  her  fingers  and  without  any 
bread,  all  except  a  little  bit  which  she  gave  out  of 
her  mouth  to  her  mamma.  And  I  went  up  a  hill  to 
a  Capuchin  convent  and  saw  some  of  my  favorite 
dirty  scoundrels  with  beards,  and  the  town  clinks 
all  over  with  Austrian  sabres." 

I  never  think  of^  Geneva  and  of  those  particular 
days  without  a  curious  feeling  of  terror  and  emo- 
tion. We  were  in  a  tall  hotel,  with  windows  looking 
towards  the  lake,  and  it  was  lovely  summer  weather, 
but  it  was  a  dismal  time.  My  dear  grandmother 
sought  for  sympathy  among  the  people  to  whom  she 
was  naturally  drawn,  the  masters  and  teachers  be- 
longing to  the  Protestant  Church  in  Geneva.  They 
were  interesting  and  important  personages,  who  in- 
spired me  with  a  curious  mixture  of  respect  and 
discomfort,  and  to  whom  my  grandmother  had 
brought  various  introductions  from  her  friends  the 
French  Vvotcstant  pasfeurs  at  Paris. 


146     CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

There  was  a  garden  to  which  she  took  me,  not 
far  from  our  hotel,  with  beautiful  shady  trees  and 
spreading  grass.  In  the  garden  stood  a  white 
chapel — clean,  light,  bare,  decorous,  with  some  black 
and  white  marble  ornamentations.  A  woman  in  a 
black  frilled  cap  showed  us  to  our  seats,  and  there 
we  waited,  listening  for  some  time  to  a  clanging 
bell.  Then  the  service  began.  Only  one  or  two 
people  came  to  it,  but  the  place,  although  to  others 
it  might  speak  of  most  fervent  and  passionate  emo- 
tion, seemed  oppressive  with  chill  and  silent  religion 
to  me.  When  all  was  over,  my  grandmother  had 
some  low-voiced  conversation  with  the  woman  in 
the  black  cap,  who  beckoned  to  the  bell-ringer,  and 
the  result  of  the  whispering  was  that,  after  a  short 
delay,  we  were  led  across  the  grass  and  under  the 
trees  to  a  retired  part  of  the  garden,  where  in  the 
shade  of  some  bushes  sat  an  old  man  of  very  noble 
aspect,  with  long  white  hair  falling  on  his  shoulders. 
He  looked  to  me  like  some  superior  being.  Indeed, 
to  my  excited  imagination  it  seemed  as  if  I  were 
being  brought  up  to  the  feet  of  a  prophet,  to  some 
inspired  person  who  was  sitting  there  in  authority 
and  in  -judgment  on  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  This 
old  man  was  M.  Cesar  Malan,  the  head  of  a  section 
of  the  Calvinist  Church  in  Geneva,  whose  name  was 
well  known  and  very  widely  respected.  He  had 
built  the  chapel  in  his  garden.     Not  a  little  to  my 


IN   VILLEGGIATURA  147 

consternation,  after  a  few  words  with  my  grand- 
mother, he  immediately,  with  the  utmost  kindness, 
began  asking  me  questions  about  myself,  about  my 
convictions,  my  religious  impressions,  my  hopes, 
my  future  aspirations.  He  was  very  kind,  but  even 
an  angel  from  heaven  would  be  alarming,  suddenly 
appearing  to  a  girl  of  fifteen  with  such  a  catechism. 
The  more  kindly  he  pressed  me,  the  less  able  I  was 
to  answer.  Sometimes  I  said  too  much,  sometimes 
I  was  hopelessly  silent,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  ner- 
vous discussion  as  to  the  ultimate  fate  of  Judas 
(I  felt  somewhat  akin  to  him  myself)  the  scene 
ended  in  my  bursting  into  tears  of  embarrassment 
and  hopeless  confusion.  I  was  consoled  on  our  re- 
turn to  the  hotel  by  my  grandfather,  who  was  most 
sympathetic.  "Those,  my  dear  child,"  he  said, 
''  who  have  studied  deeply,  who  are  able  to  read 
the  Scriptures  in  the  original,  are  far  more  likely 
than  you  or  I  to  be  able  to  judge  correctly  upon 
such  important  subjects,  and  we  had  therefore 
better  leave  all  such  speculations  entirely  to  them." 
That  next  winter,  which  we  spent  in  Paris,  we 
used  to  attend  the  classes  of  a  man  even  better 
known  than  Cesar  IMalan  —  Adolphc  IMonod,  who 
remains  to  me  one  of  the  most  striking  and  noble 
figures  I  have  ever  met;  his  face,  his  dark  eyes,  all 
spoke  as  well  as  his  eloquent  voice,  and,  above  all, 
his  earnest  life  and  ways.     To  me  he  seemed  the 


148      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

St.  Paul  of  my  own  time;  and  those  classes  which 
cost  so  many  tears,  and  which  gave  rise  to  so  much 
agitated  discussion,  are  still  among  the  most  touch- 
ing and  heart-reaching  experiences  of  my  life.  I 
can  see  the  girls'  faces  now,  as  they  listened  to 
their  beloved  pastcur.  Our  hearts  were  in  our 
lessons,  as  his  was  in  his  teaching,  undoubtedly; 
Ave  were  all  in  earnest  and  ready  to  follow;  only, 
though  I  longed  to  be  convinced,  I  could  only  ad- 
mire and  love  the  lesson  and  the  teacher  as  well. 
He  w^arned,  encouraged,  explained  in  his  earnest, 
gentle  voice.  "Ah,  mes  enfants,"  I  can  hear  him 
saying,  "  fuyez,  fuyez  ce  monde  !"  Fly  the  world  ! 
If  ever  the  world  was  delightful  and  full  of  interest 
it  was  then  —  the  daily  task,  the  hour  and  its  inci- 
dents eventful  and  absorbing;  if  ever  our  hearts 
were  open  to  receive,  not  to  reject,  it  w^as  then. 
M.  Monod  himself  was  no  unimportant  factor  in  my 
world.  I  once  saw  Faraday,  who  reminded  me  of 
him.  The  pastcur  had  come  to  sec  my  grandmoth- 
er on  this  occasion,  and  I  met  him  on  the  staircase; 
but  he  passed  me  by,  and  did  not  recognize  me  out 
of  my  place  in  the  second  row  of  chairs,  nor  did  I 
venture  to  speak  to  him.  I  still  remember  the 
strange  thrill  we  felt,  and  which  ran  in  a  whisper 
along  the  class,  when  we  heard  that  Henrietta  P. 
had  been  refused  her  first  communion  for  going 
to  a  ball  within  a  week  of  the  event.     She  came  no 


IN    VILLEGGIATURA  149 

more  to  tlie  meetings.  The  girls  sat  in  their  places 
on  rows  of  straw  chairs,  and  many  of  the  parents 
accompanied  them.  Sometimes  in  a  corner  by  the 
window  holding  up  a  small  Bible,  in  which  he  fol- 
lowed the  references  with  attention,  there  sat  an 
oldish  gentleman,  who  was  (so  we  were  told)  the 
great  prime-minister,  M.  Guizot. 

My  father  did  not  sail  for  America  till  the  au- 
tumn of  that  year,  but  we  remained  on  at  Paris  with 
our  grandparents.  The  sun  streamed  into  our  apart- 
ments all  day  long,  for  we  had  windows  looking  to 
every  side  of  the  compass.  When  Paris  was  get- 
ting intolerably  hot,  we  started  for  the  country, 
where  my  grandfather  had  taken  a  country-house 
on  a  lease  for  two  or  three  years,  in  a  village  called 
Mennecy,  near  Corbcil.  Mennecy  was  a  straggling 
little  village  among  peat  fields,  crossed  by  narrow 
black  streams,  or  canals,  of  the  color  of  the  peat. 
Growing  by  the  banks  were  long  rows  of  stumpy 
willow-trees,  cut  year  by  year  for  the  sake  of  the 
osiers,  which  were  sold  to  the  basket-makers.  Here 
and  there,  perhaps  at  the  turn  of  the  stream,  some 
single  tree  had  been  allowed  to  grow  to  its  natural 
dimensions,  forming  a  sequestered  nook  where  some 
of  us  used  to  bathe  on  hot  summer  days'.  TVvo 
young  friends  of  my  grandmother's — Laura  and 
Pauline  C. — were  with  us  most  of  the  time  we  were 


150      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

living  in  this  villeggiatura,  and  Pauline  especially- 
loved  the  water,  and  used  to  come  home  fresh  and 
smiling  and  pluming  herself  after  her  cool  divings. 
Mennecy  was  a  rural  spot  among  willow -trees,  a 
perfect  retreat  for  hot  weather. 

There  was  an  old  paved  place  in  the  centre  of 
the  village,  leading  to  a  fine  old  church  well  served 
and  well  frequented,  of  which  the  Sunday  bells 
clanged  far  across  the  country.  We  used  to  see  the 
congregation  assembling  in  cheerful  companies,  ar- 
riving from  outlying  farms,  and  greeting  each  other 
in  the  market-place  before  the  mass  began  ;  a  con- 
gregation with  more  of  talk  and  animation  than 
with  us,  with  blue  smocks  and  white  linen  coiffcs, 
and  picturesque  country  cloaks  and  sabots.  W'e 
used  somewhat  ruefully  to  wish  to  follow  Pauline 
and  Louise  (our  cross  maid-of-all-work)  through  the 
swing-doors  behind  which  the  incense  was  tossing 
and  the  organ  rolling  out  its  triumphant  fugue.  A 
Roman  Catholic  service  seems  something  of  a  high 
festival,  coming  round  Sunday  after  Sunday,  a  rite 
bringing  excitement  and  adoration  along  with  it. 
Our  own  village  church -bells  also  ring  out,  calling 
to  the  peaceful  congregations;  calling  us  to  some- 
thing more  tranquil,  more  free,  and  more  full  of  in- 
dividual feeling — to  an  aspiration  rather  than  to  a 
rite. 

My  grandparents'  house  had  once  been  a  hunt- 


IN    VILLEGGIATURA  I5I 

ing-lodgc  belonging  to  Henry  IV.,  who  loved  the 
neighborhood,  and  frequented  Compiegne  long 
years  before  the  President  Louis  Napoleon,  or 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  III.  and  his  courtiers,  and 
their  ladies  in  hunting-costumes,  and  with  spirit- 
ed horses  and  fanfarons,  all  followed  the  chase,  I 
don't  remember  ever  seeing  any  of  them,  but  we 
had  a  general  impression  that  those  hunting  com- 
panies were  about,  and  any  day  a  gay  procession, 
not  unlike  something  out  of  a  fairy-tale,  might 
come  riding  past  our  old  gates.  They  were  old 
creaking  gates,  which  had  once  been  green,  now 
gray  and  weather-stained  ;  our  high  walls,  which  had 
once  been  white,  were  also  green  and  stained  and 
overgrown  by  a  vine.  M.  Roche  had  given  \\s  Joce- 
lyn  to  read  about  a  year  before,  and  I  used  to  think 
of  the  description  of  the  cure's  home  as  I  stood  in 
the  old  court -yard  at  Mennecy,  with  its  well  and 
its  vine-clad  walls.  There  was  an  old  well  with  a 
wrought-iron  top  to  it  and  a  rope,  and  there  was  a 
vine  travelling  along  the  margin  and  spreading  be- 
}-ond  it,  along  the  wrought-iron  railing,  to  the  pret- 
ty old  iron  gate  dividing  the  court -yard  from  the 
old  garden  at  the  back,  which,  with  its  dainty,  rusty 
iron  scrolls,  excluded  the  cocks  and  hens  that  flap- 
ped and  picketed  and  strutted  all  day  long  in  the 
front  court,  and  roosted  at  night  in  the  great  empty 
stables  opposite  our  house. 


152      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

The  hunting-lodge,  before  it  had  become  our 
home,  had  been  turned  into  a  farm  ;  the  knights 
and  cavahers  had  made  way  for  blouses  and  cow- 
herds, and  the  hunters  had  given  up  their  stalls 
to  heavy  cart-horses,  though,  indeed,  there  was 
room  to  spare  for  any  number  of  either.  But  the 
farmer  died  in  time,  and  his  widow  married  the 
milkman,  and  she  let  the  old  place  to  my  grand- 
father, who  had  a  special  purpose  in  coming  to 
Mennecy. 

A  flight  of  stone  steps  led  from  the  court-yard 
to  the  house,  just  as  one  sees  in  Scotland,  which 
looks  so  like  France  in  places.  Our  front  windows 
opened  on  to  a  garden,  and  the  passages  and  the 
sitting-rooms  were  panelled  in  some  parts.  We 
could  walk  all  round  the  drawing-room  between 
the  panels  and  the  walls ;  nor  was  it  dark  within 
the  wainscot,  for  there  were  two  little  windows  at 
cither  end  to  give  light  to  the  spiders  and  the  ac- 
tive mice  who  chiefly  frequented  this  passage.  The 
floors  were  all  of  brick,  on  which  we  had  laid  a, car- 
pet, and  my  grandmother  had  brought  a  blue  sofa 
and  chairs  from  Paris,  and  hired  a  piano  in  Corbeil. 

"  Quel  charmant..  mcuble  1"  our  neighbor  the 
Maire  used  to  say  when  he  came  in  of  an  evening, 
bowing  politely  to  the  piano  and  then  to  us.  Pol- 
ished rosewood!  ivory  keys!  gilt  handles!  Me  was 
genuine  in  his  enthusiastic  admiration.      To  hear 


IN   VILLEGGIATURA  153 

him  one  would  think  there  had  never  been  such  a 
piano  since  the  world  began.  It  got  very  much 
out  of  tune,  but  that  did  not  shake  our  faith  in  it. 
We  gave  parties  on  the  strength  of  the  cJiarniant 
vuuhlc.  Piano  company  (so  wc  considered  our- 
selves) was  not  so  very  common  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. Laura  could  play  (as  she  still  does)  to  the 
delight  of  her  listeners  ;  Pauline  had  a  very  sweet 
mezzo  soprano  voice,  and  used  to  sing  to  the  piano 
and  to  us  of  summer  evenings.  M.  le  INIaire  was 
also  very  fond  of  singing  and  of  being  accompanied. 
His  wife  was  not  musical,  but  our  young  ladies  were 
very  patient  and  kind,  and  used  to  repeat  the  more 
difficult  passages  over  and  over  again  for  him,  and 
try  not  to  laugh  when  he  went  very  much  out  of 
tune.  My  sister  and  I  used  to  find  the  panelled 
passages  a  convenient  retreat  occasionally,  when  a 
note  went  very  wildly  astray  ;  or  we  could  always 
run  out  through  the  French  windows  into  the  gar- 
den, where  the  grasshoppers'  concert  would  also 
strike  up  of  fine  summer  evenings,  and  seemed  to 
whistle  and  spread  far,  far  beyond  the  corn-fields 
and  the  poppy  -  heads.  There  was  a  terrace  at  the 
end  of  the  garden  where  a  pavilion  stood  overlook- 
ing the  high-road,  from  which  we  could  see  the  reg- 
iments as  they  passed  on  their  way  to  Corbeil,  and 
the  dragoons  watering  their  horses  at  the  little  vil- 
lage inn.     All  along   this   terrace   grew  pumpkin 


154      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

plants,  which  we  scarcely  noticed  when  we  first  ar- 
rived, although  we  were  full  of  admiration  for  the 
luxuriant  vines  hanging  from  all  the  walls,  and  of 
which  one  charming  tunnelled  avenue  ran  right 
across  a  corner  of  the  garden.  Pauline  and  I  used 
to  sit  there  that  summer-time  under  the  green  shad- 
ows, making  believe  to  learn  Italian  with  Goldoni 
and  a  dictionary — that  is  to  say,  I  was  making 
believe ;  she  not  only  learned  the  language,  but 
married  a  Milanese  gentleman  in  after-years.  Only 
the  other  day,  as  we  sat  entranced  by  Madame 
Duse's  gracious  inspirations,  I  seemed  for  the  first 
time  to  enter  into  the  real  spirit  of  those  by-gone 
and  almost  forgotten  studies.  Goldoni  suddenly 
came  to  life  again,  and  I  thought  of  the  old  green 
vine  avenue,  and  the  books  I  had  been  bored  by  as 
a  girl  began  to  speak  to  me  for  the  first  time.  As 
the  autumn  went  on  myriads  of  wasps  appeared  ; 
the  grapes  swelled  and  turned  to  golden  sweetness  ; 
we  used  to  go  into  the  garden  with  hunches  of 
bread,  and  gather  our  own  breakfasts  and  lunch- 
eons growing  on  the  walls.  Along  with  the  grapes 
came  the  pumpkins,  and  they  also  grew.  Cinder- 
ella's were  nothing  to  them  ;  the  huge  balls  came 
swelling  and  rolling  down  upon  us,  coloring  and 
rising  in  every  direction.  We  got  frightened  at 
last — it  seemed  wicked  to  waste  them  ;  we  boiled 
them,  we  passed  them  through  sieves,  we  steeped 


IN    VILLEGGIATURA  155 

them  in  milk  by  the  Maire's  advice.  At  the  end  of 
three  or  four  days  we  absolutely  loathed  them. 
The  pigs  of  the  neighborhood,  already  satiated 
with  pumpkin,  refused  to  touch  them  any  more. 
On  the  fifth  day  a  neighbor  sent  us  in  a  great  bas- 
ketful as  a  present.  We  were  literally  bombarded 
with  pumpkins  that  year,  but  let  us  hope  it  was  a 
specially  good  year  for  fruit. 

I  said  that  my  grandfather  had  a  special  purpose 
in  view  when  he  brought  us  to  Mennecy.  Our  dear 
Colonel  Newcome  had  a  fancy  that  he  could  re- 
habilitate the  family  fortunes  by  establishing  a 
manufactory  for  peat  fuel,  which  was  to  be  made 
by  the  help  of  an  ingenious  machine.  It  had  been 
invented  by  an  old  friend,  who  had  sold  him  the 
patent  for  a  certain  sum,  and  as  a  special  favor. 
This  same  friend,  who  seems  to  have  been  ingen- 
ious, though  an  expensive  acquaintance,  had  also 
invented  a  wooden  horse,  which  was  to  supersede 
the  usual  living  quadrupeds.  It  had  the  great  ad- 
vantage of  only  eating  coal  and  coke,  but  I  believe 
it  was  found  all  the  same  to  be  much  more  ex- 
pensive than  the  real  animal,  and  far  less  intelli- 
gent. I  remember  seeing  the  ingeniously  carved 
hoofs  of  the  wooden  horse  standing  on  the  piano, 
with  a  drawing  for  his  cast-iron  inside.  I  was  only 
once  shown  the  peat-machine  ;  it  looked  something 
like  a  stove,  and  used  to  be  poked  by  an  old  woman. 


156      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

while  a  little  boy  with  a  barrow  brought  up  the 
peat,  which  was  then  and  there  turned  into  black 
cakes.  We  never  made  our  fortunes  out  of  the 
peat,  but  we  burned  a  great  stack  of  it,  which  glowed 
bright  and  clear,  and  lasted  through  several  winters, 
and  I  believe  the  whole  thing  was  finally  handed 
over  to  an  experimentalist  on  the  spot,  who  may 
still  be  there  for  all  I  know.  He  was  a  short  and 
swarthy  man,  who  used  to  come  and  bargain  in  the 
dining-room  at  enormous  length. 

As  my  grandparents  had  spent  several  summers 
at  Mennecy,  they  had  made  acquaintance  with  the 
two  or  three  neighbors,  and  with  the  family  at  the 
chateau.  We  used  to  pass  the  chateau  when  we 
walked  along  the  high-road,  which  was  divided  from 
the  park  by  a  wall.  Here  and  there  were  iron  gates, 
through  which  we  could  see  into  the  shady  avenues 
of  poplar -trees  and  nut-trees,  and  in  one  place, 
where  an  old  bridge  crossed  a  stream,  we  caught 
sisht  of  the  old  white  house,  with  its  shutters  and 
chimneys  and  high  slated  roof.  There  had  been 
another,  a  finer  one,  before  this,  we  were  told,  stand- 
ing in  a  different  corner  of  the  same  park.  A  fine 
old  gateway  still  remained  with  its  heraldic  carvings 
and  mementos  of  the  past,  but  the  road  had  trav- 
elled on  elsewhere,  and  no  longer  passed  under  it,  as 
it  did  once  long  ago  when  the  king's  hunt  used  to 
come  along  the  avenue,  which  now  led  from  noth- 


IN    VILLEGGIATURA  157 

ing  to  nowhere.  There  is  a  description  of  this  very 
place  in  Liicicn  Percy's  cleh'ghtfuU/r;//^/V^  of  Pres- 
ident Ilenault  and  Madame  Dii  Deffand  : 

"  The  first  chdtcau  belonged  to  the  early  days  of  Louis 
XV.,  and  was  inhabited  by  the  great  Marechal  de  Villeroi," 
says  the  book.  "  Remy  Renault  had  a  pretty  country- 
house  at  Etioles  [Etioles  comes  back  to  me  with  its  willow- 
trees  and  dark  amber  canals]  ;  it  was  the  house  that  Ma- 
dame de  Pompadour  afterwards  lived  in.  Renault  used  to 
spend  part  of  the  year  there,  and  as  his  son  was  fond  of 
sport,  he  bought  for  him  from  the  Marechal  de  Villeroi  a 
rangership  and  the  place  of  Governor  of  Corbeil.  The  old 
Marechal  took  a  fancy  to  young  Renault,  and  used  to  keep 
him  to  stay  at  the  chateau,  and  also  at  his  little  house  at 
Soisy,  near  Etioles.  As  ranger  of  the  district  Renault  often 
received  the  Dauphin,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  the  Duke 
of  Berr}',  who  used  to  come  with  a  small  suite  to  Ville- 
neuve-Saint-Georges.  The  Dauphin  used  to  hunt  wolves, 
accompanied  by  the  ranger  ;  the  young  princes  only  shot 
pheasants.  It  is  curious  nowadays  to  think  of  people  hunt- 
ing wolves  at  Villeneuve-Saint-Georges,"  continues  Lucien 
Percy,  still  conjuring  up  my  past  for  me,  and  then  he  gives 
a  note,  saying :  "  The  remains  of  the  Chateau  de  Villeroi 
still  exist  on  the  right  hand  of  the  road  from  Corbeil  to 
Mennecy,  a  road  which  is  alwa3's  called  in  the  country  '  La 
route  de  Villeroi.'  " 

And  this  was  the  road  along  which  we  used  to 
straggle  of  summer  evenings. 

The  people  who  were  living  at  the  chdtcau  when 
we  lived  at  Mennecy  (the  first  chcitcau,  I  believe,  was 


158      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

burned  down  during  the  First  Revolution)  were 
retired  manufacturers  who  had  given  up  business, 
and  who  now  dwelt  at  ease  and  in  dignity,  sheltered 
by  the  high  slated  roofs  and  chimneys  of  the  old 
place.  My  grandparents  had  been  introduced  to 
the  family  by  our  friend  the  Maire,  and  when  we  all 
went  up  to  call  with  him  one  day,  the  younger  mem- 
bers of  the  party  were  not  without  hopes  of  finding 
some  companions  there,  for  we  had  seen  a  girl  of 
about  our  own  age,  who  was,  so  the  Maire  told 
us,  an  heiress,  and  the  only  daughter  of  the  house. 
As  we  walked  up  through  the  park  we  met  the 
gardener,  who  left  his  work  to  escort  us  to  the 
front  door,  calling  loudly  to  a  maid  who  sat  darn- 
ing stockings  in  the  marble  hall.  She  in  turn  put 
down  her  work  and  disappeared  through  a  tall 
carved  doorway,  returning  almost  immediately  to 
ask  us  to  go  in.  We  found  ourselves  in  a  big  draw- 
ing-room with  polished  floors,  and  with  many  tall 
windows  opening  to  the  garden ;  some  of  them 
were  shuttered  and  curtained,  and  the  room  -was 
rather  dark.  In  it  sat,  in  a  semicircle  with  chairs 
ready  placed,  the  stout  mother,  the  burly  father, 
and  the  broad-shouldered  heiress  in  her  plaid  frock. 
They  received  us  very  coldly,  looking  at  us  with  cu- 
riosity and  aloofness,  as  if  we  had  been  specimens 
of  some  strange,  unknown  race.  I  thought  the 
gardener  and  the   sew^ing-maid  also   stared  at  us. 


IN   VILLEGGIATURA  159 

when  they  returned,  almost  immediately,  with  trays 
of  refreshment — biscuits  and  glasses  of  beer,  which 
were  handed  round  already  poured  out.  I  do  not 
know  if  this  were  a  custom  peculiar  to  the  neighbor- 
hood, or  only  to  this  particular  family.  The  young 
lady  seemed  surprised  that  we  should  refuse. 
"  What,  English,  and  you  do  not  take  beer  ?"  she 
said,  placing  her  tumbler  between  her  knees.  Be- 
tween her  draughts  she  then  went  on  to  ask  us 
many  questions  about  that  strange  country  to 
which  we  belonged,  about  our  outlandish  ways  and 
singular  habits.  It  was  a  very  different  catechism 
from  M.  Malan's.  ''  Did  we  ever  go  to  church  at 
all  ?"  "  Did  we  ever  say  any  prayers?"  "  Did  not 
heretics  fast  every  Sunday,  instead  of  making  it 
a  fete-day  ?"  "  Had  we  ever  heard  of  the  Virgin 
Mary  [surprise  expressed]  and  the  saints  [more  sur- 
prise] ?"  Our  friend  the  Maire  saw  with  pain  that 
we  young  ladies  were  not  getting  on,  and  tried  to 
bring  the  conversation  round  to  other  more  con- 
genial topics  than  those  fundamental  differences 
for  which  we  should  all  have  burned  one  another  a 
century  before  ;  he  therefore  introduced  the  piano 
by  way  of  a  diversion,  the  cliarmant  nicublc  from 
Corbeil,  and  I  could  see  that  we  slightly  rose  in  our 
host's  estimation,  but  I  came  away  all  the  same 
very  much  put  out.  It  is  disagreeable  to  be  both 
damned  in  the  future  and  looked  down  upon  in  the 


l6o      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

present,  as  one  belonging  to  an  ignorant  and  bar- 
barous race.  I  felt  as  if  all  the  Catholic  saints  in 
Paradise,  certainly  all  the  French  ones,  were  shrug- 
ging their  shoulders  at  us  when  we  came  away,  and 
I  spoke  quite  crossly  to  M.  le  Maire  when  he  asked 
me  what  I  thought  of  the  chitteaii. 

There  used  to  be  an  odd  stout  figure  walking 
about  Mennecy  in  a  workman's  blouse  and  loose 
trousers,  and  with  a  cropped  head  of  black  hair  and 
an  old  casquette.  We  were  told  that  it  was  a 
woman ;  and  a  wholly  supposititious  impression  once 
arose  in  some  one's  mind  that  it  might  have  been 
George  Sand  herself.  I  passed  quite  close  by  on 
one  occasion,  when  the  mysterious  personage  looked 
round  and  then  turned  away,  and  I  thrilled  from 
head  to  foot.  How  odd  those  mysterious  moments 
are  when  nothing  seems  to  be  happening,  but  which 
nevertheless  go  on  all  the  rest  of  one's  life.  I  saw 
a  face,  stolid  and  sad,  giving  me  an  impression  of 
pain  and  long  endurance  which  comes  back  still. 
It  seemed  to  be  a  woman's  face,  flabby  and  tanned, 
not  old.  There  was  no  gayety  in  it,  no  adventure 
in  the  eyes;  but  expiation,  endurance,  defiance,  I 
know  not  what  tragedy,  was  expressed  by  that  thick- 
set, downcast  figure.  I  have  now,  alas,  no  doubt 
that  it  was  not  George  Sand.  I  had  not  read  any 
of  her  books  then,  but  wc  had  many  things  to  read 
besides   in    the  old    garden.     There  were  various 


IN    VILLEGGIATURA  l6l 

books  my  father  had  given  us  and  told  us  to  read 
during  his  absence,  Macaulay's  Essays  among  them  ; 
and  there  was  Pciidcnnis,  which  I  had  brought  away 
from  home,  and  which  has  ahvays  seemed  to  me 
more  like  hearing  him  talk  than  any  other  of  his 
books;  and,  above  all,  there  were  his  letters  which 
came  from  time  to  time.  He  was  giving  lectures 
at  Manchester  and  elsewhere  before  sailing  for 
America,  and  there  is  one  of  his  letters  folded  in 
three,  and  addressed  on  the  back  to  my  sister  at 
Mennecy,  Seine-et-Oise. 

"  You  see  here  is  the  stuck-up  hand  as  you  like  it  best.  .  .  . 
I  have  not  a  great  deal  to  say  in  the  stuck-up  hand.  Ken- 
sington is  so  gloomy  that  I  can't  stand  it.  .  .  .  How  dismal 
it  must  be  for  poor  Eliza  [Eliza  was  the  housekeeper],  who 
has  no  friends  to  go  to,  who  must  stop  in  the  kitchen  all 
day.  As  I  think  of  her  I  feel  inclined  to  go  back  and  sit  in 
the  kitchen  with  Eliza,  but  I  dare  say  I  shouldn't  amuse  her 
much,  and  after  she  had  told  me  about  the  cat,  and  how 
her  father  was,  we  should  have  nothing  more  to  say  to  one 
another.  Last  week  I  was  away  at  Manchester,  when  I 
broke  down  in  a  speech  before  3000  ladies  and  gentlemen. 
I  felt  very  foolish,  but  I  tried  again  at  night  and  did  better, 
and  as  there  is  nothing  more  wicked  in  breaking  down  in  a 
speech  than  in  slipping  on  a  bit  of  orange-peel  and  breaking 
one's  nose,  why,  I  got  up  again,  and  made  another  speech 
at  night  without  breaking  down.  It's  all  custom,  and  most 
people  can  no   more  do   it   than  they  can  play  the  piano 

without  learning.     I  hope  you  and are  learning  hard 

to  play  me  to  sleep  when  I  come  back  from  America.     I 


l62      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

believe  I  am  going  to  Birmingham  next  week  with  the  lect- 
ures, and  then  to  Manchester,  and  then —  Steward,  bring 
me  a  basin !" 

Many  years  afterwards,  long  after  I  married,  the 
good  and  beautiful  Lady  Pease  gave  us  the  great 
pleasure  of  meeting  Mr.  John  Bright  at  dinner  at 
her  house.  I  sat  next  Mr.  Bright,  and  he  began 
speaking  to  me  of  my  father,  and  of  this  very  time. 
"  I  remember,"  he  said,  "  taking  him  to  a  meeting 
at  Manchester,  just  before  he  went  to  America  with 
his  lectures.  He  broke  down,  and  he  was  very 
much  annoyed,  and  he  said  to  me  :  *  Who  will  ever 
come  and  hear  me  lecture  if  I  break  down  like  this 
before  such  a  number  of  people  ?'  And  I  said  to 
him:  'Never  you  mind;  very  few  people  don't 
break  down  at  one  time  or  another.  You  come 
along  with  me  this  evening;  I'm  going  to  another 
meeting;  I'm  not  going  to  speak  to  fine  fal-lal  folks, 
but  to  a  set  of  good,  honest  wotking-men,  and  you 
must  try  again.'  And  he  spoke,"  said  Mr.  Bright, 
in  his  downright  way,  "  and  I  never  heard  a  better 
speech  in  all  my  life;  it  was  a  capital  speech,  and 
they  were  all  delighted  with  him."  And  then  and 
there  ]\Ir.  Bright  told  me  another  little  anecdote  of 
my  father,  Avhom  he  had  met  a  short  while  before 
his  death  at  the  Reform  Club.  He  said  that  as  he 
was  passing  through  the  hall,  he  met  him  standing 
in  his  way  and  he  stepped  back,  took  off  his  hat, 


IN    VILLEGGIATURA  1 63 

and  stood  with  it  in  his  outstretched  hand.  "What 
is  that  for?"  said  Mr.  Bright.  "Why  do  you  hold 
your  hat  Hke  that?"  "  Because  I  see  the  most  con- 
sistent poHtician  I  know  going  by,"  said  my  father, 
"  and  I  take  off  my  hat  to  him." 

When  my  father  sailed  for  America,  people  were 
very  kind  to  us,  and  wrote  to  us  with  news  of  him. 
Esmond  cdixnc  for  my  grandmother,  and  a  box  which 
we  received  at  Paris  puzzled  us  very  much,  and  de- 
lighted us  no  less  than  it  puzzled  us.  It  contained 
a  magnificent  iced  cake,  anonymously  and  carefully 
packed  with  strips  of  many-colored  paper.  It  was 
not  my  father  who  had  sent  it,  as  we  imagined,  nor 
was  it  till  long  afterwards  that  we  discovered  that 
the  sender  was  Mrs.  Procter.  Many  things  are  re- 
membered of  her,  but  how  many  kind  deeds  there 
have  been  of  hers  without  a  name  to  them  ! 

Once  the  letters  began  to  arrive  from  America 
we  were  all  much  happier,  for  we  seemed  in  touch 
with  him  once  more,  and  to  know  what  was  happen- 
ing. He  was  fairly  well  and  in  good  spirits,  and 
making  friends  and  making  money.  I  remember 
his  writing  home  on  one  occasion  and  asking  us  to 
send  him  out  a  couple  of  new  stomachs,  so  hospi- 
table were  his  friends  over  the  water,  so  numerous 
the  dinners  and  suppers  to  which  he  was  invited. 
When  the  long  summer  and  winter  were  over, 
and  the  still  longer  spring,  suddenly  one  day  we 


164      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

heard  that  he  was  coming  back  much  sooner  than 
he  expected.  I  believe  he  saw  a  steamer  starting 
for  home  and  could  stand  it  no  longer,  and  then 
and  there  came  off. 

I  can  still  remember  sitting  with  my  grandpar- 
ents, expecting  his  return.  My  sister  and  I  sat 
on  the  red  sofa  in  the  little  study,  and  shortly  be- 
fore the  time  we  had  calculated  that  he  might  ar- 
rive came  a  little  ring  at  the  front-door  bell.  My 
grandmother  broke  down ;  my  sister  and  I  rushed 
to  the  front  door,  only  we  were  so  afraid  that  it 
might  not  be  he  that  we  did  not  dare  to  open  it, 
and  there  we  stood  until  a  second  and  much  louder 
ringing  brought  us  to  our  senses.  "  Why  didn't  you 
open  the  door?"  said  my  father,  stepping  in,  looking 
well,  broad,  and  upright,  laughing.  In  a  moment 
he  had  never  been  away  at  all. 


TOUT    CHEMIN 


X 


After  his  return  from  America  my  father  took 
an  apartment  in  Paris  for  the  autumn  months,  and 
it  was  then  that  he  told  us  he  had  made  a  plan  for 
wintering  in  Rome.  It  almost  seems  to  me  now 
that  all  the  rest  of  my  life  dates  in  some  measure 
from  those  old  Roman  days,  which  wxre  all  the 
more  vivid  because  my  sister  and  I  were  still  spec- 
tators and  not  yet  actors  in  the  play.  I  was  just 
fifteen,  my  sister  was  still  a  little  girl,  but  I  thought 
myself  a  young  woman.  I  have  written  elsewhere 
of  Mrs.  Kemble  and  Mrs.  Sartoris  and  the  Brown- 
ings, who  were  all  living  at  Rome  that  winter,  with 
a  number  of  interesting  people,  all  drinking,  as  we 
were  about  to  do,  of  the  waters  of  Trevi.  How  few 
of  us  returned  to  the  fountain !  But  the  proverb,  I 
think,  must  apply  to  one's  spiritual  return.  For, 
though  one  may  drink  and  drink,  and  go  back  again 
and  again,  it  is  ever  a  different  person  that  stands 
by  the  fountain,  whereas  the  shadowy  self  by  the 
stone  basin,  bending  over  the  rushing  water,  is  the 
same,  and  does  not  change. 

We   started   early  in   December,  my  father,  my 


1 68      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

sister,  and  I.  He  had  his  servant  with  him,  for 
already  his  health  had  begun  to  fail  him.  We 
reached  Marseilles  in  bitter  weather  late  one  night. 
We  laid  our  travelling  plaids  upon  our  beds  to  keep 
ourselves  warm,  but  though  we  shivered,  our  spirits 
rose  to  wildest  pitch  next  morning  in  the  excite- 
ment of  the  golden  moment.  The  wonderful  sights 
in  the  streets  are  before  me  still — the  Jews,  Turks, 
dwellers  in  Mesopotamia,  chattering  in  gorgeous 
colors  and  strange  languages ;  the  quays  with  their 
crowded  shipping  and  the  amethyst  water.  I  can 
still  see,  in  a  sort  of  mental  picture,  a  barge  piled 
with  great  golden  onions  floating  along  one  of  the 
quays,  guided  by  a  lonely  woman  in  blue  rags  with 
a  colored  kerchief  on  her  head.  "  There  goes  the 
Lady  of  Shalot,"  said  my  father ;  and  when  we 
looked  at  him  rather  puzzled,  for  we  knew  noth- 
ing of  onions  and  very  little  of  Tennyson  in  those 
days,  he  explained  that  a  shalot  was  a  species  of 
onion,  and  after  a  moment's  reflection  we  took  in 
his  little  joke,  feeling  that  nobody  ever  thought  of 
such  droll  things  as  he  did.  Then  we  reached  our 
hotel  again,  where  there  were  Turks  still  drinking 
coffee  under  striped  awnings,  and  a  black  man  in  a 
fez,  and  a  lank  British  diplomat,  with  a  very  worn 
face,  who  knew  my  father,  arriving  from  some  out- 
landish place  with  piles  of  luggage ;  and  wc  caught 
sight  of  the   master  of  the  hotel  and   his  family 


TOUT   CHEMIN  169 

gathered  round  a  soup-tureen  in  a  sort  of  glass  con- 
servatory, and  so  went  up-stairs  to  rest  and  refresh 
ourselves  before  our  start  that  evening.  All  this 
splendor  and  novelty  and  lux  nmndi  had  turned 
our  heads,  for  we  forgot  our  warm  wraps  and  half 
our  possessions  at  the  hotel,  and  did  not  discover, 
till  long  after  the  steamer  had  started  with  all  of  us 
on  board,  how  many  essentials  we  had  left  behind. 
The  sun  was  setting  as  we  steamed  out  of  Mar- 
seilles, and  the  rocky  island  of  If  stood  out  dark 
and  crisp  against  the  rush  of  bright  wavelets,  across 
which  we  strained  our  eyes  to  see  Monte  Cristo  in 
his  sack  splashing  into  the  water  of  the  bay.  Then 
we  got  out  to  sea,  and  the  land  disappeared  by  de- 
grees. How  the  stars  shone  that  night  on  board 
the  big  ship  !  The  passengers  were  all  on  deck 
talking  in  a  pleasant  murmur  of  voices,  broken  by 
laughs  and  exclamations.  Among  them  were  some 
people  who  specially  attracted  us,  a  very  striking 
and  beautiful  quartet  from  the  north.  There  was 
a  lovely  mother,  oldish,  widowed,  but  very  beauti- 
ful still ;  the  two  charming  daughters,  one  tall  and 
lovely, the  othera  piquante  brunette;  there  was  the 
son,  one  of  the  handsomest  young  men  I  have  ever 
seen.  They  were  going  to  Rome,  they  told  us,  for 
the  winter,  Christina,  the  eldest  girl,  was  dressed 
in  white.  She  seemed  to  me  some  fair  Urania,  con- 
trollinfr  the  stars  in  their  wondrous  maze  as  she  and 


170      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

I  and  my  sister  paced  the  deck  till  it  was  very  late, 
and  some  bell  sounded,  and  my  father  came  up  and 
sent  us  down  to  our  cabin.  Then  the  night  turned 
bitter  cold,  and,  as  we  had  left  our  shawls  on  the 
shores  of  France,  we  made  haste  to  get  to  bed  and 
to  be  warm.  Though  it  was  cold,  we  liked  fresh  air 
and  were  glad  to  find  that  our  port-holes  had  been 
left  open  by  the  steward ;  we  scrambled  into  our 
berths,  and  fell  asleep,  I  lay  at  the  top,  and  my 
sister  in  the  berth  below.  How  well  I  remember 
waking  suddenly  in  a  slop  of  salt-water !  The  ship 
was  sinking,  we  were  all  going  to  be  drowned,  and 
with  a  wild  shriek  calling  to  my  sister  I  sprang  from 
the  cabin  and  rushed  up  the  companion-steps  on 
deck.  I  thought  she  called  me  back,  but  I  paid 
no  heed  as  I  reached  the  top  of  the  companion- 
ladder,  dripping  and  almost  in  tears,  with  my  fatal 
announcement.  There  I  encountered  the  steward, 
who  began  to  laugh,  and  who  led  me  back  crest- 
fallen to  our  cabin,  at  the  door  of  which  my  sister 
was  standing.  The  water  was  dancing  in,  ,in  a 
stream,  and  the  steward  scolded  us  well  as  he 
screwed  up  the  port -holes  and  got  us  some  dry 
bedding.  Next  morning,  to  my  inexpressible  mor- 
tification, I  heard  some  people  telling  the  story. 
"  She  rushed  on  deck,  and  declared  the  ship  was 
sinking,"  said  one  voice  to  another.  I  didn't  wait 
to  hear  any  more,  but  fled. 


TOUT   CHEMIN  17I 

The  wind  went  down  again,  but  it  was  still  bit- 
ter cold,  and  we  shivered  without  our  wraps,  as  we 
steamed  up  to  Genoa  along  the  spreading  quays 
with  their  background  of  gorgeous  palaces  and 
cloud-capped  towers.  There  were  convicts  in  their 
chains  at  work  upon  the  great  steps  of  the  quay, 
who  stared  at  us  as  we  landed.  And  the  very  first 
thing  which  happened  to  us  when  we  found  our- 
selves in  Italy  at  last  —  the  land  where  citrons 
bloom,  where  orange  flowers  scent  the  air  —  was 
that  we  drove  straight  away  to  a  narrow  back 
street,  where  we  were  told  we  should  find  a  shop 
for  English  goods,  and  then  and  there  my  father 
bought  us  each  a  warm  gray  wrap,  with  stripes  of 
black,  nothing  in  the  least  Italian  or  romantic,  but 
the  best  that  we  could  get.  And  then,  as  we  had 
now  a  whole  day  to  spend  on  shore,  and  shawls  to 
keep  us  warm,  we  drove  about  the  town,  and  after 
visiting  a  palace  or  two  took  the  railway,  which 
had  been  quite  lately  opened  to  Pisa.  The  weath- 
er must  have  changed  as  the  day  went  on,  for  it 
was  sunshine,  not  Shetland  wool,  that  warmed  us 
at  last ;  but  the  wind  was  blowing  still,  and  what 
I  specially  remember  in  the  open  Piazza  at  Pisa 
is  the  figure  of  a  stately  monk,  whose  voluminous 
robes  were  fluttering  and  beating  as  he  passed  us, 
wrapped  in  darkness,  mystical,  majestic,  with  all  the 
light  beyond  his  stateliness  and  the  cathedral  in  its 


172       CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

glory  and  the  Leaning  Tower  aslant  in  the  sunlight 
for  a  background. 

Our  adventures  for  the  day  were  not  yet  over. 
At  the  station  we  found  two  more  of  the  ship's 
passengers,  young  men  with  whom  we  had  made 
acquaintance,  and  we  all  returned  to  Genoa  to- 
gether. The  train  was  late,  and  we  had  to  be  on 
board  at  a  certain  time,  so  that  we  engaged  a  car- 
riage, and  drove  quickly  to  the  quay,  where  the 
convicts  clanking  in  their  chains  were  still  at  work. 
A  boat  was  found,  rowed  by  some  sailors  who  cer- 
tainly did  not  wear  chains,  but  who  were  otherwise 
not  very  unlike  those  industrious  convicts  in  ap- 
pearance. The  bargain  was  made,  we  entered  the 
boat  all  five,  and  as  we  were  getting  in  we  could 
see  our  great  ship  in  the  twilight  looking  bigger 
than  ever,  and  one  rocket  and  then  another  going 
off  towards  the  dawning  stars.  "  They  are  signal- 
ling for  us,"  said  one  of  our  companions  ;  "  we  shall 
soon  be  on  board." 

We  had  rowed  some  twenty  strokes  from  the 
shore  by  this  time,  when  suddenly  the  boatmen 
left  off  rowing ;  they  put  down  their  oars,  and  one 
of  them  began  talking  volubly,  though  I  could  not 
understand  what  he  said.  "  What's  to  be  done?" 
said  one  of  the  young  men  to  my  father.  "  They 
say  they  won't  go  on  unless  we  give  them  fifty 
francs  more,"  and  he  began  shaking  his  head  and 


TOUT    CHEMIN  I 73 

remonstrating  in  broken  Italian.  The  boatmen 
paid  no  attention,  shrugged  their  shoulders,  and 
waited,  as  if  they  were  determined  never  to  row 
another  stroke.  Then  the  steamer  sent  up  two 
more  rockets,  which  rose  through  the  twilight, 
bidding  us  hurry ;  and  then  suddenly  my  father 
rose  up  in  the  stern  of  the  boat  where  he  was  sit- 
ting, and  standing  tall  and  erect,  and  in  an  anger 
such  as  I  had  never  seen  him  in  before  or  after  in 
all  my  life,  he  shouted  out  in  loud  and  indignant 
English,  "  D n  you,  go  on  !"  a  simple  maledic- 
tion which  carried  more  force  than  all  the  Italian 
polysyllables  and  expostulations  of  our  companions. 
To  our  surprise  and  great  relief,  the  men  seemed 
frightened,  and  took  to  their  oars  again  and  began 
to  row,  grumbling  and  muttering.  When  we  got 
on  board  the  ship,  they  told  us  it  was  a  well-known 
trick  the  Genoese  boatmen  were  in  the  habit  of 
playing  upon  travellers,  and  that  they  would  have 
sent  a  boat  for  us  if  we  had  delayed  any  longer. 

We  reached  our  journey's  end  next  morning,  and 
landed  at  Civita  Vecchia  about  mid-day.  This  land- 
ing was  no  less  wonderful  than  everything  else,  we 
thought,  as  we  looked  in  awe  at  the  glorious  blaze 
of  color,  at  the  square  Campanile  with  its  flat  tilted 
roof,  and  at  all  that  we  were  going-  to  see,  which 
was  there  to  meet  us  on  the  very  shore.  To  begin 
with,  there  was  the  chorus  from  the  Opera  waiting 


174      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

in  readiness — men  with  pointed  hats  and  Italian 
legs,  women  in  fancy  dress,  with  fancy-dress  babies, 
all  laughing,  talking  in  Italian,  and  at  home  in 
Italy.  We  had  some  trouble  in  getting  our  luggage 
through  the  dogana.  Most  of  the  other  travellers 
started  before  we  did,  and  we  were  among  the 
last  to  start  for  Rome,  My  father  was  anxious 
to  get  on,  for  there  were  unpleasant  rumors  about 
brigands  on  the  road.  Another  family  (Russians) 
with  a  courier  and  a  great  deal  of  luggage  was  to 
follow  us,  and  some  one  suggested  we  should  wait 
for  their  escort ;  but,  on  the  whole,  my  father  de- 
cided to  start.  The  afternoon  shadows  were  begin- 
ning to  lengthen,  when  at  length  we  were  packed 
and  ready.  We  had  a  mouldy  post-chaise,  with  a 
gray  ragged  lining,  and  our  luggage  on  the  top. 
We  hoped  to  get  to  Rome  before  dark.  I  remem- 
ber thrilling  as  my  father  buttoned  his  overcoat 
and  told  us  he  had  put  his  hundred  louis  for  safety 
into  an  inner  pocket. 

The  country  is  not  very  beautiful  between  Civita 
Vecchia  and  Rome — at  least,  I  do  not  remember 
anything  to  distract  our  attention  from  our  alarms. 
We  were  just  frightened  enough  to  be  stimulated 
and  amused  as  we  jolted  past  the  wide  fields  where 
the  men  were  at  w^ork.  We  sat  all  three  abreast 
in  the  jolting  old  carriage.  My  father's  servant 
was  on  the  box.     We  were  reading  our  Tauchnitz 


TOUT   CHEMIN  1 75 

books,  being  tired  of  watching  the  flat  horizons, 
when  suddenly  the  carriage  stopped,  and  Charles 
Pearman,  with  a  pale  face  of  alarm,  came  to  the 
window  and  said  that  one  of  the  traces  had  broken, 
and  that  there  were  a  number  of  people  all  com- 
ing round  the  carriage.  We  were  surrounded  by 
people  as  if  by  magic — satyrs,  shepherds,  strange 
bearded  creatures  with  conical  hats,  and  with  pitch- 
forks in  their  hands.  The  sun  was  just  setting,  and 
dazzling  into  our  faces  all  the  time.  For  some  five 
minutes  we  waited,  looking  at  each  other  in  silence, 
and  wondering  what  was  going  to  come  next.  At 
the  end  of  that  time,  and  after  a  good  deal  of  con- 
versation with  the  postilions,  the  satyrs  and  fauns 
went  their  way  with  their  pitchforks,  leaving  us, 
to  our  inexpressible  relief,  to  continue  our  journey. 
Then  came  the  dusk  at  last,  and  the  road  seemed 
longer  and  longer.  I  think  I  had  fallen  asleep  in 
my  corner,  when  my  father  put  his  hand  on  my 
shoulder.  "  Look  I"  he  said  ;  and  I  looked,  and, 
lo !  there  rose  the  dusky  dome  of  St.  Peter's  gray 
upon  the  dark-blue  sky. 

Very  soon  afterwards  some  one  with  a  lantern 
opened  the  gates  of  Rome  and  examined  our  pass- 
port, and  let  us  in.  We  drove  to  our  hotel  in  the 
Via  Condotti,  and  when  we  awoke  it  was  to  the 
sound  of  countless  church  bells  in  the  morning 
light. 


176      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

When  we  leaned  from  the  window  of  our  entresol 
sitting-room,  with  its  odd  yellow  walls,  we  could 
almost  touch  the  heads  of  the  passers-by.  It  was 
Sunday  morning;  all  the  bells  were  flinging  and 
ringing,  and  they  seemed  to  be  striking  and  vibrat- 
ing against  that  wonderful  blue  sky  overhead.  How 
well  I  remember  my  first  Roman  contadina  as  she 
walked  majestically  along  the  street  below — black- 
haired,  white-becapped,  white-besleeved,  and  cov- 
ered with  ornaments — on  her  way  to  mass. 

The  Piazza  d'Espagna,  at  the  end  of  our  street, 
was  one  flood  of  sunshine,  in  which  other  contadi- 
nas  and  bambinos  and  romantic  shepherds  were  all 
floating  when  we  came  out  to  look  and  to  wctnder. 
Wonderful  as  it  all  was,  it  seemed  also  almost  disap- 
pointing. We  had  expected,  we  didn't  know  what ; 
and  this  was  somctJiing — something  tangible,  appre- 
ciable, and,  so  far,  less  than  we  expected.  "Wait 
a  little,"  said  my  father  ;  "  people  are  always  a  little 
disappointed  when  they  first  come  to  Rome." 

I  remember  long  after  hearing  yix.  Ap'pleton, 
that  wise  and  witty  Ainerican,  sa\',  "  People  expect 
to  taste  the  result  of  two  thousand  years  of  civili- 
zation in  a  morning.  It  takes  more  than  a  morn- 
ing to  receive  so  much  into  one's  mind  ...  a  life- 
time is  not  too  long."  Mr.  Appleton  was  right 
when  he  said  it  takes  a  lifetime  to  realize  some 
ideas.      But   now   and   then   one   certainly  lives  a 


TOUT   CHEMIN  I  77 

lifetime  almost  in  a  comparatively  flying  minute; 
and  those  two  months  at  Rome,  short  as  they  were, 
have  lasted  my  lifetime.  The  people,  the  sights, 
the  sounds,  have  never  quite  ceased  for  me  yet. 
They  have  become  an  habitual  association,  and 
have  helped  to  make  that  mental  standard  by 
which  one  habitually  measures  the  events  as  they 
follow  one  another. 

The  first  evening  in  Rome,  as  we  sat  at  dinner  at 
the  table  d'hote,  in  the  dark  vaulted  dining-room, 
all  the  people,  I  remember,  were  talking  confused- 
ly of  an  attack  by  brigands  upon  some  Russians  on 
the  road  from  Civita  Vecchia — the  very  vagueness 
of  the  rumor  made  it  the  more  impressive  to  us. 
There  is  a  letter  from  my  father  which  he  must 
have  written  to  his  mother  the  very  next  day;  it  is 
dated  Hotel  Franz,  via  Condotti,  December  6. 
"  We  have  very  comfortable  quarters  at  the  hotel 
where  I  lived  before,"  he  writes,  "  except  for  some 
animal  that  bit  me  furiously  when  I  was  asleep  yes- 
terday on  the  sofa.  It  can't  be  a  bug,  of  course — 
the  chambermaid  declares  she  has  never  seen  such 
a  thing,  nor  so  much  as  a  flea,  so  it  must  be  a  scor- 
pion, I  suppose,"  and  he  goes  on  to  compare  St. 
Peter's  to  Pisa.  "  We  agreed  Pisa  is  the  best,"  he 
says.  "  The  other  is  a  huge  heathen  parade.  The 
founder  of  the  religion  utterly  disappears  under  the 
enormous  pile  of  fiction  and   ceremony  that  has 


lyS      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

been  built  round  him.  I'm  not  quite  sure  that  I 
think  St.  Peter's  handsome.  The  front  is  positive- 
ly ugly,  that  is  certain,  but  nevertheless  the  city  is 
glorious.  We  had  a  famous  walk  on  the  Pincio,  and 
the  sun  set  for  us  with  a  splendor  quite  imperial.  I 
wasn't  sorry  when  the  journey  from  Civita  Vecchia 
was  over.  Having  eighty  or  ninety  louis  in  my 
pocket,  I  should  have  been  good  meat  for  the 
brigands  had  they  chosen  to  come." 

Very  soon  our  friends  began  to  appear — Mr. 
Browning,  Mr.  Sartoris,  Mr.  /Eneas  Macbean.  Mr. 
Macbcan  was  the  English  banker.  He  was  the 
kindest  of  bankers,  and  used  to  send  us  piles  of  the 
most  delightful  books  to  read.  Lockhart's  Scott 
and  Bulwer's  heroes  and  Disraeli's  saint-like  politi- 
cians all  came  to  inhabit  our  palazzo,  when  we  were 
established  there.  Zanoni  and  that  cat-like  spirit  of 
the  threshold  are  as  vivid  to  me  as  any  of  the  peo- 
ple who  used  to  come  to  dinner.  We  met  our  late 
fellow-travellers  (who  now  also  seemed  like  old 
friends)  hurrying  about  in  search  of  lodgings  ;  we 
stood  under  the  great  dome  of  St.  Peter's ;  we  saw 
the  Tiber  rushing  under  its  bridges  ;  then,  no  doubt 
in  consequence  of  the  scorpions,  we  went  about  to 
look  for  lodgings,  and  it  was  Mr.  Browning  who 
told  us  where  to  go.  One  can  hardly  imagine  a 
more  ideal  spot  for  little  girls  to  live  in  than  that  to 
which  he  directed  us — to  a  great  apartment  over 


TOUT    CHEMIN  179 

the  pastry-cook's  in  the  Palazzo  Poniatowski,  in  the 
Via  Delia  Croce.  We  climbed  a  broad  stone  stair- 
case with  a  handsome  wrought-iron  banister,  we 
clanged  at  an  echoing  bell,  and  a  little  old  lady  in 
a  camisole,  rejoicing  in  the  imposing  name  of  Sign- 
ora  Ercole,  opened  the  door,  and  showed  us  into 
a  dark  outer  hall.  Then  she  led  the  way  from  room 
to  room,  until  we  finally  reached  a  drawing-room 
with  seven  windows,  at  which  we  exclaimed  in  pre- 
liminary admiration.  Among  the  other  items  of 
our  installation  were  a  Chinese  museum,  a  library, 
a  dining-room  with  a  brazen  charcoal-burner  in  the 
centre,  and  besides  all  these  we  were  to  have  a  bed- 
room, a  dressing-room,  and  a  cupboard  for  my 
father's  servant.  My  father  took  the  dressing-room 
for  himself.  He  put  me  and  my  sister  into  the  big 
bedroom  to  the  front,  and  the  man  retired  to  the 
cupboard  in  the  hall.  Signora  Ercole,  our  land- 
lady, also  hospitably  offered  us  the  run  of  her  own 
magnificent  sitting-rooms,  besides  the  four  or  five 
we  had  engaged.  I  have  a  vague  impression  of  her 
family  of  daughters,  also  in  camisoles,  huddled 
away  into  some  humbler  apartment,  but  we  saw 
little  of  them.  We  established  ourselves  in  one 
corner  of  the  great  drawing-room,  clearing  an  inlaid 
table  of  its  lamps  and  statuettes,  its  wax  flowers, 
and  other  adornments.  Then  we  felt  at  home.  A 
stone-mason  suspended  at  his  work  began  to  sing  in 


l8o      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

mid-air  just  outside  one  of  the  windows,  there  came 
to  us  the  sound  of  the  pfiffcrari  from  the  piazza 
down  below,  and  the  flutter  of  the  white  doves' 
wings  and  their  flying  shadows  upon  the  floor,  to- 
gether with  a  scent  of  flowers  and  sense  of  foun- 
tains, and  the  fusty,  fascinating  smell  from  the  old 
hangings  and  bric-a-brac,  I  think  the  Ercoles  must 
have  done  some  business  as  brocanteiirs,  for  the  fur- 
niture was  more  like  that  of  a  museum  than  a  hu- 
man living-house  ;  all  over  the  walls  they  had  rows 
of  paintings  in  magnificent  gildings,  of  which  the 
frames  were  the  most  important  parts.  All  the 
same,  the  whole  effect  was  imposing  and  delightful, 
and  we  felt  like  enchanted  princesses  in  a  palace, 
and  flew  from  room  to  room. 

About  luncheon-time  my  father  sent  us  down  to 
the  pastry-cook's  shop,  where  we  revelled  among 
cream  tarts  and  pctits  fours,  and  then  we  ordered 
our  dinner,  as  people  did  then,  from  a  traiio7'ia 
near  at  hand.  Then  we  went  out  again,  still  in  our 
raptures,  and  when  dinner-time  came,  just  about 
sunset,  excitement  had  given  us  good  appetites, 
notwithstanding  the  tarts.  We  were  ready,  but 
dinner  delayed.  We  waited  more  and  more  impa- 
tiently as  the  evening  advanced,  but  still  no  dinner 
appeared.  Then  the  English  servant,  Charles,  was 
called,  and  despatched  to  the  cook-shop  to  make 
inquiry.     He  came  back  much  agitated,  saying  the 


TOUT    CHEMIN  l8l 

dinner  had  been  sent — that  they  assured  him  it  had 
been  sent !  It  had  apparently  vanished  on  its  way 
up  the  old  palace  stairs.  "  Go  back,"  said  my 
father,  "  and  tell  them  there  is  some  mistake,  and 
that  we  are  very  hungry,  and  waiting  still."  The 
man  left  the  room,  then  returned  again  with  a 
doubtful  look.  There  zuas  a  sort  of  box  came  an 
hour  ago,  he  said  :  "  I  have  not  opened  it,  sir." 
With  a  rush  my  sister  and  I  flew  into  the  hall,  and 
there,  sure  enough,  stood  a  square,  solid  iron  box 
with  a  hinged  top.  It  certainly  looked  very  unlike 
dinner,  but  we  raised  it  with  faint  hopes,  which 
were  not  disappointed  !  Inside,  and  smoking  still 
upon  the  hot  plates,  was  spread  a  meal  like  some- 
thing in  a  fairy-tale — roast  birds  and  dressed  meat, 
a  loaf  of  brown  bread  and  compotes  of  fruit,  and  a 
salad  and  a  bottle  of  wine,  to  which  good  fare  we 
immediately  sat  down  in  cheerful  excitement — our 
first  Roman  family  meal  together. 

When  people  write  of  the  past,  those  among  us 
who  have  reached  a  certain  age  are  sometimes  apt 
to  forget  that  it  is  because  so  much  of  it  still  exists 
in  our  lives  that  it  is  so  dear  to  us.  And,  as  I  have 
said  before,  there  is  often  a  great  deal  more  of  the 
past  in  the  future  than  there  was  in  the  past  itself 
at  the  time.  W^e  go  back  to  meet  our  old  selves, 
more  tolerant,  forgiving  our  own  mistakes,  under- 
standing it  all  better,  appreciating  its  simple  joys 


1 82      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

and  realities.  There  are  compensations  for  the  loss 
of  youth  and  fresh  impressions;  and  one  learns  lit- 
tle by  little  that  a  thing  is  not  over  because  it  is  not 
happening  with  noise  and  shape  or  outward  sign  ; 
its  roots  are  in  our  hearts,  and  every  now  and  then 
they  send  forth  a  shoot  which  blossoms  and  bears 
fruit  still. 

Early  life  is  like  a  chapter  out  of  Dickens,  I  think 
— one  sees  people  then  ;  their  tricks  of  expression, 
their  vivid  sayings,  and  their  quaint  humors  and 
oddities  do  not  surprise  one ;  one  accepts  every- 
thing as  a  matter  of  course ^ — no  matter  how  un- 
usual it  may  be.  Later  in  life  one  grows  more  fas- 
tidious, more  ambitious,  more  paradoxical ;  one  be- 
gins to  judge,  or  to  make  excuses,  or  to  think  about 
one's  companions  instead  of  merely  staring  at  them. 
All  the  people  w'e  now  saw  for  the  first  time — vivid 
but  mysterious  apparitions ;  we  didn't  know  what 
they  were  feeling  and  thinking  about,  only  we  saw 
them,  and  very  delightful  they  all  were  to  look  at. 

Meanwhile  our  education  was  not  neglected:  We 
had  a  poetess  to  teach  us  a  little  Italian,  a  signora 
with  a  magnificent  husband  in  plaid  trousers,  to 
whom  I  am  sure  she  must  have  written  many  po- 
ems. Once  she  asked  us  to  spend  an  evening  in 
her  apartment.  It  was  high  up  in  a  house  in  a 
narrow  street,  bare  and  swept,  and  wc  found  a 
company  whose  conversation  (notwithstanding  all 


TOUT   CHEMIN  1 83 

Madame  Elconora  Torti's  instructions)  was  quite 
unintelHgble  to  us.  We  all  sat  in  a  circle  round  a 
great  brass  brazier  in  the  centre  of  the  bare  room. 
Every  now  and  then  the  host  took  up  an  iron  bar 
and  stirred  the  caldron  round,  and  the  fumes  arose. 
Two  or  three  of  the  elder  people  sat  in  a  corner 
playing  cards — but  here  also  we  were  at  fault.  The 
cards  represented  baskets  of  flowers,  coins,  nuts,  un- 
known and  mysterious  devices ;  among  which  the 
familiar  ace  of  diamonds  was  the  only  sign  we  could 
recognize. 

After  these  social  evenings  our  man  used  to  come 
to  fetch  us  home,  through  moonlight  streets,  past 
little  shrines  with  burning  lamps,  by  fountains 
plashing  in  the  darkness.  We  used  to  reach  our 
great  staircase,  hurry  up  half  frightened  of  ghosts 
and  echoes,  but,  being  too  much  alive  ourselves  to 
go  quickly  to  sleep,  we  opened  Mr.  Alacbean's  fasci- 
nating book,  read  by  the  light  of  our  flaring  can- 
dles long  after  we  had  heard  our  father's  door  shut 
and  till  the  bell  of  the  Frate  in  the  convent  close 
by  began  to  toll. 


MRS.   KEMBLE 


XI 


My  father  was  a  very  young  man  when  he  first 
knew  the  Kemblc  family.  In  1832  he  himself  was 
twenty  -  one,  a  couple  of  years  younger  than  Mrs. 
Fanny  Kemble,  who  was  born  in  1809.  The  men- 
tions of  the  Kemble  family  in  a  diary  which  he 
kept  about  that  time  are  very  constant.  "  Called 
at  Kemble's.  Walked  with  Kemble  in  the  Park." 
(Kemble  was  John  Mitchell  Kemble,  Mrs.  Fanny 
Kemble's  brother.)  "We  met  the  Duke  looking  like 
an  old  hero,"  he  continues.  "  Breakfasted  with 
Kemble.  Went  to  see  the  rehearsal  of  the  Easter 
piece  at  Covent  Garden,  with  Farley  in  his  glory." 
Again :  "  Called  at  Kemble's.  He  read  me  some 
very  beautiful  verses  by  Tennyson."  On  another 
occasion  my  father  speaks  of  seeing  a  "  ]\Iiss  Tot,  a 
very  nice  girl.  Madam  not  visible  ;  "  and  again  of 
"Miss  Fanny  still  in  Paris.  .  .  ." 

It  was  in  the  year  185 1,  or  thereabouts,  that  my 
own  scraps  of  recollections  begin,  and  that  I  re- 
member walking  with  my  father  along  the  high 
street  at  Southampton,  and  somewhere  near  the 
archway  he  turned,  taking  us  with  him  into  the  old 


l88      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

Assembly  Rooms,  where  I  heard  for  the  first  and 
only  time  in  all  my  life  a  Shakesperean  reading 
by  Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble.  I  think  it  was  the  first 
time  I  ever  saw  her.  She  came  in  with  a  stiff  and 
stately  genuflection  to  the  audience,  took  her  seat 
at  the  little  table  prepared  for  her,  upon  which  she 
laid  her  open  book,  and  immediately  began  to 
read.  ]\Iy  sister  and  I  sat  on  either  side  of  our 
father.  He  followed  every  word  with  attention  ;  I 
cannot  even  make  sure  of  the  play  after  all  these 
years,  but  Falstaff  w^as  in  it,  and  with  a  rout  and 
a  shout  a  jolly  company  burst  in.  Was  it  Falstaff 
and  his  companions,  or  were  they 

"  Fairies,  black,  gray,  green,  and  white, 
You  moonshine  revellers — "? 

Suddenly  the  lady's  voice  rose,  with  some  gen- 
erous cheery  chord  of  glorious  fun  and  jollity.  I 
can  hear  the  echo  still  and  see  her  action  as  she 
pointed  outwards  with  both  open  hands,  and  my 
father,  with  a  start,  bursting  into  s}'mpathizing 
laughter  and  plaudit,  began  crying  "Bravo  !  Bravo!" 
and  then  again  he  sat  listening  and  looking  approv- 
ingly through  his  spectacles.  As  we  came  away  he 
once  more  broke  into  praise.  "  Don't  you  see  how 
admirably  she  forgets  herself?"  he  said  ;  "  how  she 
throw^s  herself  into  it  all?  how  finely  she  feels  it?" 
My  father  was  the  best  of  audiences,  a  born  critic 


MRS.    KEMBLE  189 

and  yet  an  enthusiast ;  and  to  the  last  he  could 
throw  himself  into  the  passing  mood,  into  the  spirit 
of  the  moment,  while  at  the  same  time  he  knew 
what  it  was  he  was  admiring,  and  why  he  admired. 

Some  years  passed  before  we  met  Mrs.  Kemble 
again,  in  Rome.  It  was  at  a  very  hard  and  difificult 
hour  of  her  life,  so  I  have  heard  her  say,  a  time 
when  she  needed  all  her  courage  to  endure  her 
daily  portion  of  suffering.  I  was  then  a  hobblede- 
hoy, and  (though  she  was  no  less  kind  to  mc  then 
than  in  later  years)  I  only  stared  and  wondered  at 
her  ways,  asking  myself  what  she  meant,  and  how 
much  she  meant  by  the  things  she  said ;  but  when 
I,  too,  was  an  older  woman  the  scales  fell  from  my 
eyes. 

One  had  to  learn  something  one's  self  before 
one  could  in  the  least  appreciate  her.  When  the 
gods  touch  one's  hair  with  gray,  then  comes  some 
compensating  revelation  of  what  has  been  and  still 
is.  Now  I  can  understand  the  passionate  way  in 
which  ]\Irs.  Kemble  used  in  early  times  to  speak  of 
slavery ;  then  I  used  to  wonder,  nor  realize  in  the 
least  what  she  felt,  when  she  would  sometimes  start 
to  her  feet  in  agitation  and  passionate  declamation  ; 
she  who  with  streaming  eyes  and  wrung  heart  had 
walked  about  the  plantations  feeling  more,  perhaps, 
than  any  slave  could  do  what  it  was  to  be  a  slave. 
To  her  free  and  ruling  nature  every  hour  of  bond- 


190      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

age  must  have  seemed  nothing  short  of  tort- 
ure. In  those  far-back  Roman  days  of  which  I 
have  been  writing,  she  used  to  take  us  out  driving 
with  her  from  time  to  time.  "  Where  shall  I  drive 
to?"  asked  the  coachman.  .  "  Aiidate  al  Diavolo !'' 
said  Mrs.  Kemble,  gayly.  "  Go  where  you  will, 
only  go!"  And  away  we  drive  through  the  streets, 
and  out  by  garden  walls  and  garden  gates  to  the 
Campagna,  and  as  we  drive  along  she  begins  to 
sing  to  us.  I  could  box  my  own  past  ears  for  won- 
dering what  the  passers-by  would  think  of  it,  in- 
stead of  enjoying  that  by-gone  song. 

I  can  also  remember  Mrs.  Kcmble  sitting  dressed 
in  a  black  dress  silently  working  all  through  the 
evening  by  her  sister's  fireside,  and  gravely  stitch- 
ing on  and  on,  while  all  the  brilliant  company  came 
and  went,  and  the  music  came  and  went.  In  those 
days  Mrs.  Kemble  had  certain  dresses  which  she 
wore  in  rotation  whatever  the  occasion  might  be. 
If  the  black  gown  chanced  to  fall  upon  a  gala-day 
she  wore  it,  if  the  pale  silk  gown  fell  upon  a  work- 
ing-day she  wore  it ;  and  I  can  still  hear  an  Ameri- 
can girl  exclaiming  with  dismay  as  the  delicate 
folds  of  a  white  silk  embroidered  with  flowers  went 
sweeping  over  the  anemones  in  the  Pamphili  Gar- 
dens. Another  vivid  impression  I  have  is  of  an 
evening  visit  Mrs.  Kemble  paid  Mrs.  ]3rowning  in 
the  quiet  little  room  in  the  Bocca  di  Leone,  only  lit 


MRS.    KEMRLE  I91 

by  a  couple  of  tapers  and  by  the  faint  glow  of  the 
fire.  I  looked  from  one  to  the  other:  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing welcoming  her  guest,  dim  in  her  dusky  gown 
unrelieved  ;  Mrs.  Kemble  upright  and  magnificent, 
robed  on  this  occasion  like  some  Roman  empress  in 
stately  crimson  edged  with  gold.  It  happened  to 
be  the  red-dress  day,  and  she  wore  it.  "  How  do 
you  suppose  I  could  have  lived  my  life,"  I  once 
heard  her  say,  "  if  I  had  not  lived  by  rule,  if  I  had 
not  made  laws  for  myself  and  kept  to  them  ?"  Out 
of  this  stress  of  feeling,  out  of  this  passionate  re- 
bellion against  fate,  she  grew  to  the  tender,  the 
noble  and  spirited  maturity  of  her  later  days.  In 
time,  by  habit  and  degrees,  we  learn  to  understand 
a  little  more  how  to  fit  ourselves  to  circumstances, 
and  life  begins  to  seem  possible  and  to  contain 
certain  elements  of  peace  and  of  philosophy  ;  it  is 
in  mid-life  when  we  try  to  accommodate  our  own 
wants  and  wishes  to  those  of  others  that  the  strain 
is  greatest  and  the  problem  occasionally  passes  be- 
yond our  powers  of  solution.  Indeed,  very  few  so- 
lutions are  possible,  though  wise  compromises  exist 
for  us  all.  Some  are  more  adaptable  than  others, 
and  not  having  very  positive  selves  to  manage,  hav- 
ing impressions  rather  than  strong  convictions  to 
act  upon,  they  run  fairly  well  along  other  people's 
lines ;  but  when  strong  feeling,  vivid  realizations, 
passionate  love  of  truth  and  justice,  uncompromis- 


192       CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

ing  faith  exist,  then  experience  becomes  hard  in- 
deed. When  Mrs.  Kemble  went  to  her  rest  only 
the  other  day,  few  among  the  critics  who  spoke  so 
inadequately  of  that  great  personahty,  who  wrote 
their  conventional  praise  or  indiscriminating  blame, 
had  come  into  touch  with  the  magnetism  of  her 
personal  inspiration.  One  only,  her  own  and  her 
daughter's  personal  friend,  Mr.  Henry  James,  to 
whom  she  turned  with  confidence  and  love  to  the 
very  last,  has  found  words  to  write  that  of  her  which 
those  who  knew  her  best  will  best  appreciate.  "  A 
prouder  nature  never  fronted  the  long  humiliation 
of  life,"  he  says,  touching  upon  the  more  tragic  side 
of  her  history. 

One  should  have  a  different  language  to  speak 
with  of  each  of  those  one  has  loved  and  admired  in 
turn.  Such  a  language  exists  in  one's  heart,  but 
how  can  one  translate  it  into  print  ?  Some  people 
seem  like  green  places  in  the  desert;  one  thinks  of 
them,  and  one  is  at  rest.  It  is  also  true  that  there 
exist  a  certain  number  who  oppress  one  with  name- 
less discouragement,  bores  past  and  present.  But 
the  Elect  are  those  who  put  life  into  one,  who  give 
courage  to  the  faint-hearted,  hope  out  of  their  own 
hearts'  constancy;  to  these  Fanny  Kemble  be- 
longed indeed.  To  the  end  she  retained  the  power 
of  making  new  friends,  of  being  loved  by  them  and 
of  loving  them.     One  member  of  my  own  family, 


MRS.    KEMBLE  193 

whom  the  elder  lady  was  pleased  to  christen  Rosa- 
lind, only  knew  her  when  she  was  long  past  seventy 
years  of  age,  but  what  a  true  and  spontaneous 
friendship  was  that  which  sprang  up  between  them 
both,  one  which  added,  so  wrote  Mrs.  Wister,  to 
the  happiness  of  her  mother's  later  years.  Mrs. 
Kemble  returned  love  with  love  in  full  measure, 
whether  it  came  to  her  in  the  shape  of  beauti- 
ful white  azaleas  from  an  old  friend's  hand,  or  of 
music  played  so  as  to  delight  her  fine  taste,  or  even 
as  diiinme  Licbe  with  nothing  to  say,  nothing  to 
show. 

I  once  went  out  shopping  with  her  one  spring 
morning  when  she  thought  her  room  would  look 
the  brighter  for  muslin  curtains  to  admit  the  light. 
She  carried  a  long  purse  full  of  sovereigns  in  her 
hand.  We  drove  to  Regent  Street  to  a  shop  where 
she  told  me  her  mother  and  her  aunt  used  both  to 
go.  It  may  have  been  over  that  very  counter  that 
the  classic  "  Will  it  wash?"  was  uttered.  The  shop- 
man, who  had  assuredly  not  served  Mrs.  Siddons 
or  he  would  have  learned  his  lesson  earlier  in  life, 
produced  silken  hangings  and  worsted  and  fabrics 
of  various  hues  and  textures  to  Mrs.  Kcmble's  great 
annoyance.  I  had  gone  to  another  counter  and 
came  back  to  find  her  surrounded  by  draperies,  sit- 
ting on  her  chair  and  looking  very  serious  ;  distant 
thunder  seemed  in  the  air.  "  Young  man,"  she 
13 


194      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

said  to  the  shopman,  "perhaps  your  time  is  ot  no 
value  to  you — to  me  my  time  is  of  great  value.  I 
shall  thank  you  to  show  me  the  things  I  asked  for 
instead  of  all  these  things  for  which  I  did  not  ask," 
and  she  flashed  such  a  glance  at  him  as  must  have 
surprised  the  youth.  He  looked  perfectly  scared, 
seemed  to  leap  over  the  counter,  and  the  muslin 
curtains  appeared  on  the  spot. 

Mrs.  Kemble  once  asked  me  suddenly  what  color 
her  eyes  were,  and  confused  and  unready  I  an- 
swered, "  Light  eyes."  At  the  moment  indeed  they 
looked  like  amber,  not  unlike  the  eyes  of  some  of 
those  captive  birds  one  sees  in  their  cages  sitting 
alone  in  the  midst  of  crowds.  Mrs.  Kemble  laughed 
at  my  answer.  "  Light  eyes  !  Where  are  your  own? 
Do  you  not  know  that  I  have  been  celebrated  for 
my  dark  eyes?"  she  said;  and  then  I  looked  again 
and  they  were  dark  and  brilliant,  and  looking  at 
me  with  a  half-amused,  half-reproachable  earnest- 
ness. 

It  must  have  been  in  the  early  years  of  the  cen- 
tury that  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  sketched  that  well- 
known  and  most  charming  head  of  Mrs.  Fanny 
Kemble  with  which  we  are  most  of  us  acquainted. 
The  oval  face,  the  dark  eyes,  the  wise  young  brows, 
the  glossy  profusion  of  dark  hair,  represent  her 
youth ;  she  was  no  less  striking  in  her  age,  though 


MRS.    KEMBLE  195 

no  great  painter  ever  depicted  it.  She  grew  to 
be  old  indeed,  but  it  was  only  for  a  little  while  that 
she  was  an  old  woman.  Stately,  upright,  ruddy  and 
brown  of  complexion,  almost  to  the  very  last;  mo- 
bile and  expressive  in  feature,  reproachful,  mock- 
ing, and  humorous,  heroic,  uplifted  in  turn.  This 
was  no  old  woman,  feeling  the  throb  of  life  with 
an  intensity  far  beyond  that  of  younger  people, 
splendid  in  expression,  vehement,  and  yet  at  times 
tender  with  a  tenderness  such  as  is  very  rare.  She 
was  indeed  one  of  those  coming  from  the  moun- 
tain, one  of  the  bearers  of  good  tidings.  As  a 
girl  I  used  to  watch  Mrs.  Kemble  stitching  at  her 
worsted  work,  and  so  in  later  days  we  have  all  seen 
her ;  sitting  in  her  arm-chair,  dressed  in  her  hand- 
some black  silk  Paris  dress  and  lace  cap.  She  sits 
upright  by  the  window,  with  flowers  on  the  table 
beside  her,  while  her  birds  are  pecking  in  their 
cage.  For  a  long  time  she  kept  and  tended  cer- 
tain American  mocking-birds,  letting  them  out  of 
their  cages  to  fly  about  the  room,  and  perch  here 
and  there  upon  the  furniture.  "  I  have  no  right," 
she  used  to  say,  *'  to  inflict  the  annoyance  of  my 
pleasures  upon  my  servants,  and  therefore  I  attend 
to  my  birds  and  their  requirements  myself."  She 
emphasizes  her  words  as  she  sits  at  work,  stitching 
in  the  long  colored  threads  with  extra  point  as  she 
speaks,  or  again,  when  she  is  interested  in  what  she 


196      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

says,  putting  down  her  tapestry  and  looking  straight 
into  your  face,  as  she  explains  her  meaning  directly 
and  clearly,  and  without  fear  of  being  misunder- 
stood. I  once  complained  to  her  of  something  said 
by  some  one  else.  "  I  do  not  care  what  any  one 
thinks  of  me,  or  chooses  to  say  of  me  " — I  can  al- 
most hear  her  speak ;  "  nay,  more  than  that,  I  do 
not  care  what  any  one  chooses  to  say  of  the  peo- 
ple I  love ;  it  does  not  in  any  way  affect  the  truth. 
People  are  at  liberty  to  speak  what  they  choose, 
and  I  am  also  at  liberty  not  to  care  one  farthing 
for  w^hat  they  say  nor  for  any  mistakes  that  they 
make."  What  Mrs.  Kemble  did  care  for,  scrupu- 
lously, wdth  infinite  solicitude,  was  the  fear  of  hav- 
ing ever  caused  pain  by  anything  that  she  had  said 
in  the  energy  of  the  moment ;  she  would  remem- 
ber it  and  think  over  it  after  days  had  passed. 
People  did  not  always  understand  her,  nor  how 
her  love  of  the  truth,  as  it  appeared  to  her,  did 
not  prevent  her  tenderness  for  the  individual ;  she 
would  also  take  it  for  granted  that  whoever  it  was 
she  was  talking  to  also  preferred  the  truth  to  any 
adaptation  of  it.  Her  stories  of  the  past  were  end- 
lessly interesting  and  various.  She  had  known  ev- 
erybody of  interest.  She  had  always  detested  ba- 
nalities, preferring  silence  to  commonplace.  Even  as 
a  girl  she  seems  to  have  gone  to  the  root  of  things, 
and  made  others  speak  from  their  hearts.     Her  pa- 


MRS.    KEMBLE  I97 

thetic  Story  of  Mary  Shelley  haunts  one  with  the 
saddest  persistence,  and  seems  to  sigh  back  the  cur- 
tain of  the  past.  "  Bring  up  a  boy  to  think  for  him- 
self," she  as  a  girl  once  said  to  Mrs.  Shelley;  and  to 
this  came  the  mother's  passionate  reply,  "  Ah !  no, 
no ;  bring  him  up  to  think  like  other  people." 

Mr.  Henry  James  instances  among  her  social 
gifts  her  extraordinary  power  of  calling  up  the 
representation  of  that  which  was  in  her  mind,  and 
impressing  others  with  her  own  impression.  Those, 
he  says,  who  sometimes  went  with  her  to  the  play 
in  the  last  years  of  her  life  will  remember  the  Juli- 
ets, the  Beatrices,  the  Rosalinds,  whom  she  could 
still  make  vivid  without  any  accessory  except  the 
surrounding  London  uproar. 

I  myself  fortunately  once  happened  to  ask  her 
some  question  concerning  "As  You  Like  It,"  which 
had  been  her  sister's  favorite  play.  Suddenly,  as 
if  by  a  miracle,  her  little  room  seemed  transformed; 
there  were  the  actors,  not  even  actors ;  there  stood 
Rosalind  and  Celia  themselves,  there  stood  the 
Duke,  there  was  Orlando  in  the  life  and  spirit. 
One  spoke  and  then  another,  Rosalind  pleading, 
the  stern  Duke  unrelenting ;  then  we  were  some- 
how carried  to  the  Forest,  with  its  depths  and  its 
delightful  company.  It  all  lasted  but  a  few  mo- 
ments, and  there  was  Mrs.  Kemble  again  sitting  in 
her  chair  in  her  usual  corner ;  and  yet  I  cannot  to 


198      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

this  day  realize  that  the  whole  beautiful  mirage  did 
not  sweep  through  the  little  room,  with  color  and 
light  and  emotion,  and  the  rustling  of  trees,  and  the 
glittering  of  embroidered  draperies. 

Mrs.  Kemble  told  me  that  she  herself  had  only 
once  heard  her  aunt  Mrs.  Siddons  read.  She  said 
the  impression  was  very  overpowering,  though  she 
had  been  almost  a  child  at  the  time.  It  was  from 
the  witches'  scene  in  "  Macbeth  "  that  Mrs.  Siddons 
read.  She  was  very  old  and  broken  at  the  time, 
and  living  in  retirement ;  but  she  forgot  her  suffer- 
ing state  in  her  theme.  The  sense  of  storm  and 
mystery  and  power  was  all  round  about,  Mrs.  Kem- 
ble said.  One  can  imagine  the  scene,  the  dark-eyed 
maiden  sitting  at  the  feet  of  the  great  actress  and 
receiving  the  initiation  from  her  failing  hands. 

The  true  dramatic  faculty  does  not  indeed  de- 
pend on  footlights,  or  on  a  stage ;  it  is  a  special 
gift  from  spirit  to  spirit.  Fanny  Kemble  was  al- 
most the  very  last  representative  of  the  ruling  race 
to  which  she  belonged,  and  in  no  small  degree  did 
she  retain  to  the  very  end  their  noble  gift  of  illumi- 
nation, of  giving  life  to  words  and  feelings.  She 
herself  has  defined  this  power.  "  Things  dramatic 
and  things  theatrical  are  often  confounded  togeth- 
er "  she  writes.  "  English  people,  being  for  the 
most  part  neither  one  nor  the  other,  speak  as  if 
they  were  identical,  instead  of  so  dissimilar  that  they 


MRS,    KEMBLE  igg 

are  nearly  opposite.  That  which  is  dramatic  in  hu- 
man nature  is  the  passionate,  emotional,  humorous 
element,  the  simplest  portion  of  our  composition ; 
that  which  imitates  it  is  its  theatrical  reproduction. 
The  dramatic  is  the  real  of  which  the  theatrical  is 
the  false.  A  combination  of  the  power,"  she  con- 
tinues, "  of  representing  passion  and  emotion  with 
that  of  imagining  or  conceiving  it  is  essential  to 
make  a  good  actor ;  their  combination  in  the  high- 
est degree  alone  makes  a  great  one." 

I  remember  Mrs.  Sartoris  once  saying:  "I  do  not 
know  if  you  will  think  it  very  conceited  of  me  ;  but 
it  always  seems  to  me  that  no  one  I  ever  talk  to 
seems  able  to  say  anything  clearly  and  to  the  point, 
except  myself  and  my  sister  Fanny.  When  she 
speaks  I  know  exactly  what  she  means  and  wants 
to  say;  when  other  people  speak,  I  have  to  find  out 
what  they  mean,  and  even  then  I  am  not  certain 
that  they  know  it  themselves."  As  Mrs.  Sartoris 
spoke  she  looked  at  me  with  her  searching  glance ; 
her  beautiful  head  was  like  that  of  some  classical 
statue  nobly  set  upon  her  shoulders.  But  no  clas- 
sical statue  ever  looked  at  you  as  she  did  ;  her  eyes 
and  mouth  spoke  before  she  uttered.  She  always 
seemed  to  me  an  improvisatrice.  Both  these  wom- 
en had  the  rare  power  of  stirring  and  stimulating 
one's  sleepy  makeshift  soul,  suggesting,  satisfying. 
It  was  as  if  Mrs.  Sartoris  could  at  will  compel  the 


200      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

sound  and  the  sense  and  the  color  into  that  in 
which  she  was  interested,  so  that  we  were  all  for 
the  time,  and  indeed  for  a  lifetime  since,  illumined 
by  her. 

Mrs.  Sartoris  was  living  in  Paris  in  the  Rue  Roy- 
ale,  at  one  time,  in  a  very  stately  apartment.  It 
seemed  to  suit  her,  as  did  all  handsome  and  beauti- 
ful things.  I  don't  suppose  the  modern  aesthetic 
taste  would  have  suited  her.  She  liked  glorious 
things  full  of  color,  Italian,  sumptuous,  and  she 
liked  them  used  for  daily  life  and  pleasure.  She 
made  a  home  out  of  her  lovely  bric-a-brac  and  ta- 
pestries and  cabinets.  Something,  of  course,  must 
be  allowed  for  the  grateful  excitement  of  inexperi- 
ence;  but  to  us  in  those  days  her  houses  seemed 
like  succeeding  paradises  upon  earth.  I  can  re- 
member on  one  occasion  gazing  in  admiration  at 
a  glowing  shaded  lamp,  the  first  I  had  ever  seen, 
reflected  from  one  glass  to  another,  and  listening 
to  my  hostess  as  she  sang  Oberon's  "  Mermaid 
Song,"  from  the  far  end  of  the  room.  Then  came 
dinner  in  an  octagon  dining-room  at  a  round  table 
with  pink  wax  candles  and  ices,  and  then  a  quick 
drive  to  the  theatre  where  our  stalls  were  kept  for 
us.  I  remember  neither  the  name  of  the  theatre 
nor  of  the  play,  only  the  look  of  the  bright  lighted 
stage,  and  the  pretty  white  house  full  of  spectators. 
Mrs.  Sartoris  was  using  a  pair  of  turquoise  eye- 


MRS.    KEMBLE  20I 

glasses,  through  which  she  looked  about,  and  pres- 
ently she  whispered  to  me,  "There,  to  your  left,  in 
the  box  on  the  first  tier."  I  looked,  expecting  I 
know  not  what,  and  my  first  impression  was  disap- 
pointment. I  saw  some  figures  in  the  box — two 
men  standing  at  the  back,  and  a  lady  in  a  front  seat 
sitting  alone.  She  was  a  stout  middle-aged  wom- 
an, dressed  in  a  stiff  watered-silk  dress,  with  a  huge 
cameo,  such  as  people  then  wore,  at  her  throat. 
Her  black  shiny  hair  shone  like  polished  ebony ; 
she  had  a  heavy  red  face,  marked  brows,  great 
dark  eyes  ;  there  was  something — how  shall  I  say 
it?  —  rather  fierce,  defiant,  and  set  in  her  appear- 
ance, powerful,  sulky  ;  she  frightened  one  a  little. 
"  That  is  George  Sand,"  said  Mrs.  Sartoris,  bend- 
ing her  head  and  making  a  friendly  sign  to  the 
lady  wath  her  eyeglasses.  The  figure  also  bent  its 
head,  but  I  don't  remember  any  smile  or  change 
of  that  fixed  expression.  The  contrast  struck  me 
the  more,  for  my  hostess,  as  I  have  said,  scarcely 
needed  to  speak  to  make  herself  understood ;  her 
whole  countenance  spoke  for  her  even  if  she  was 
silent.  George  Sand  looked  half -bored,  half -far- 
away ;  she  neither  lighted  up  nor  awoke  into  greet- 
ing.* 

*  I  like  better  to  think  of  George  Sand  as  I  never  saw  her,  with 
gray  hairs  and  a  softened  life,  outcoming  and  helpful,  and  living  in 
later  years  among  her  plants  and  her  grandchildren  and  her  poor 
people  ;  to  imagine  her  as  I  have  heard  her  described  in  her  age, 


202       CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME    UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

Mrs.  Kemble  once  said  she  had  heard  George 
Sand  described  half  in  fun  as  **  unamiable,  very  em- 
phatic, very  dictatorial — very  like  herself,  in  short"; 
but  perhaps  the  description  was  as  superficial  in 
one  case  as  it  assuredly  would  have  been  in  the 
other. 

Mrs.  Kemble  was  dramatic  rather  than  dictato- 
rial. Her  selection  of  facts  was  curiously  partial 
and  even  biassed;  not  so  her  uncompromising  sense 
of  their  moral  value.  When  she  sat  with  her  watch 
open  before  her,  reading,  writing,  working  to  rule, 
it  was  because  time  itself  was  of  importance,  in  her 
eyes,  rather  than  her  work.  For  her,  life  belonged 
to  time,  rather  than  time  to  life.  "  Do  you  think 
I  could  have  borne  with  my  life  if  I  had  not  lived 
by  rule,"  she  used  to  say.  She  carried  her  love  of 
method  into  everything,  even  into  the  game  of  pa- 
tience with  which  she  amused  herself.  Evening 
after  evening  the  table  would  be  set  and  the  ap- 
pointed number  of  games  would  be  played  con- 
scientiously, as  she  sat,  whether  she  was  tired  or 
not,  inclined  or  not,  as  a  beloved  enchantress  deal- 
ing out  past  destinies  to  the  pasteboard  men  and 
women  on  the  table  before  her.    ]\Irs.  Kemble  once 


beneficent,  occupied,  tending  and  prescribing,  distriliuting  the  sim- 
ples out  of  her  garden,  healing  the  sick,  softened  liy  time,  giving  to 
others  day  by  day  what  she  had  earned  by  her  nights  of  persistent 
work. 


MRS.    KEMBLE  203 

sent  over  for  a  neighbor  to  teach  him  patience; 
one  might  moralize  over  the  combination  —  Mrs. 
Kemble  teaching  patience  in  her  grand -seigneur 
fashion,  and  meekly  subservient  to  its  laws  !  It  was 
indeed  because  she  was  so  conscious  of  passionate 
interests  and  diversities  that  she  tried  to  shape  her 
life  to  one  recurring  pattern.  A  friend  recalls  an 
anecdote  of  Frederika  Bremer,  who  was  not  willing 
to  see  Mrs.  Kemble  on  one  occasion,  explaining 
afterwards,  "  I  could  not  see  so  many  people  as 
you  are  when  I  had  a  headache."  She  was  indeed 
many  people — actors  and  musicians,  philosophers, 
teachers,  and  poets — in  one.  She  was  eighty  before 
she  attempted  a  novel,  but  her  letters  are  models, 
especially  the  earlier  ones.  Her  poems  are  very 
lovely.  Her  farewell  to  the  Alps  was  written  after 
threescore  years  and  ten  had  passed  over  her  head, 
and  I  heard  her  read  it  with  tears.  Once  I  asked 
her  why  she  so  disliked  the  stage,  loving  all  that 
belonged  to  it  as  she  did.  She  said  that  it  was  be- 
cause she  loved  her  own  being  even  more  than  her 
art ;  that  she  found  the  constant  stimulation  of 
emotion  in  time  destroyed  in  herself  the  possibility 
of  natural  feeling,  and  that  she  wished  to  keep  the 
possession  of  her  own  soul ;  but  I  think  she  has  also 
written  this  somewhere  in  her  Records. 

Perhaps  the  most  distinguishing  stamp   of  her 
character  was  her  great  and   fervent  piety.     Her 


204      CHAPTERS    FROM    SOME   UNWRITTEN    MEMOIRS 

convictions  were  very  deep ;  what  she  said  of  her 
own  religious  faith  was  that  it  was  "  invincible,  un- 
reasoning." I  have  heard  a  friend  describe  how, 
as  they  came  along  the  mountain-pass  from  Rose- 
laui,  Mrs.  Kemble  made  her  bearers  set  her  down  at 
the  summit  of  the  ascent.  "  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes 
unto  the  hills,"  she  said,  breaking  out  into  the 
words  of  the  psalm,  and  repeating  verse  after  verse. 
She  used  to  go  regularly  to  church  when  she  was  in 
London,  though  I  do  not  think  any  of  the  steeples 
and  pulpits  which  adorn  South  Kensington  exactly 
suited  the  deep  and  fervent  spirit  of  her  faith.  She 
was  neither  high  church  nor  low  church  nor  broad 
church,  and  once  after  witnessing  a  Catholic  cere- 
mony, the  FSte  Dieu,  in  some  foreign  city,  she  ex- 
claimed to  her  man-servant,  "  Oh,  Govert,  what  an 
amusing  religion  you  have !"  But  her  faith  was  a 
noble  one,  and  her  great  reverence  for  what  was 
good  and  great  seemed  to  make  goodness  and  great- 
ness nearer  to  us. 

Of  all  possessions,  that  of  the  added  power  which 
comes  to  us  through  the  gifts  of  others  is  one  of 
the  most  mysterious  and  most  precious.  We  are  in- 
adequate in  a  thousand  ways,  but  the  grace  is  there  ; 
we  are  disappointed  and  inefficient,  and  yet  we  can 
be  happy  in  a  perfection  which  may  be  revealed  at 
any  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  It  is  like 
some  secret  link  binding  humanity  together,  some 


MRS.    KEMBLE  20$ 

fraction  of  the  rainbow  hidden  among  the  clouds 
and  the  tears  of  Hfe. 

Mrs.  Kcmble  possessed  to  a  rare  degree  the  gift 
of  ennobHng  that  to  which  she  turned  her  mind. 
Kindness  is  comparatively  commonplace,  but  that 
divine  touch  which  makes  others  feel  akin  to  qual- 
ities greater  than  they  are  conscious  of  in  them- 
selves, was,  I  think,  the  virtue  by  which  she  brought 
us  all  into  subjection. 


THE    END 


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REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILIP,' 


A    001417  538    4 


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